Winterize Houseboat Motors Engines
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You first want to consider your situation here. The first being the winter climate where your boat is moored. Example; Center Hill Lake in Tennessee. The coldest the water got last winter 2007 was 43 degrees. Never in my memory has that lake frozen. Having said that our boat has an aluminum hull and it conducts the water temperature making our engine compartment 43 degrees. Now I suggest being on the safe side. I winterized both engines and the generator last year and will again this year. Now you do have options. You could place a marine engine compartment heater and set it at a temperature you're comfortable with. Combine that with taping off the engine room vents on both sides of the boat. Remember they do a great job until an ice storm knocks out the electricity. I'm very hesitant to explain how to perform this task not knowing what your skill levels are and which engines you have. The best advice I can give you is locate and read completely your drive engine manual on this subject. If you don't have one get online and download one on your engine family. If your not comfortable with this after reading on it by all means have it done by a professional. My reason for saying this is depending on your drive engines you could or could not have an external water pick up pump. Example; if you have 3.0 4cyl. Engines most likely you have alpha drive units. These have your water pick up pumps built in them. If you have V8's you most likely have bravo outdrives and they usually have an engine mounted water pick up pump. I'm not trying to confuse you with all this but what you have dictates what you need to do. I will say in either case it's a relatively simple procedure and with the proper manual you can do this. You will need a few basic hand tools to do this job. Please note if your boat experiences hard freezes I recommend not only draining but refilling with the proper antifreeze. If you have any specific questions on this please ask. I will respond and give any assistance I can.