How dificult is it to Winterize an LS3 Salt Water Edition?
 

We have an Axis A24 with the LS3 Salt Water edition motor. Just wondering the process of winterizing it and how difficult it is? Would this be something we would want to take to a dealer or can we do it ourselves? I like to do all my own work if possible but this is the first boat I have owned so am very new to all this. We will be storing indoor throughout the winter but it is not a heated garage. I would suspect that it would seldom get below freezing inside the garage but I am sure there might be a few weeks that it could possibly. I'd hate to crack the block on the boat.

So any help on how to winterize or if you could point me in the right direction of where to ask or look that would be sweet...

I might be mistaken but I believe Salt Water editions are closed cooling like a car to avoid the corrosive nature of the salt water if it was running through your engine. You might have other systems that need to be dealt with, but I *believe* the engine cooling is a closed system with antifreeze.

http://www.indmar.com/mobile/engines...lt-series.aspx

You still need to drain the manifolds and some of the other accessories as those are raw water cooled.

If you are running in salt, you are going to want to drain and flush the engine. Drain, flush and possibly antifreeze the ballast system. We usually change our oil but we don't always fog the cylinders.

Other than that - draining block, sometimes adding antifreeze and changing the oil, we give it a good once over for cleaning and wrap her up. I usually take apart the raw water pump in preparation for dropping a new impeller in at the beginning of the next season. Maybe loosen or take off the serpentine belt...

[QUOTE=wakebordr11;1895781]You still need to drain the manifolds and some of the other accessories as those are raw water cooled./QUOTE]

From the web page I posted "That means salt water will never enter the engine system or the exhaust manifolds"

I figured there might be other accessories but they seem to think the manifolds are fine. I don't have a Salt boat so can't say for sure, but I would hope Indmar would know.

[QUOTE=jtech;1895790]Didn't look at that link. Good call, well still sounds like the heat exchanger will need to be drained, flushed and winterized.

There has got to be a heat exchanger. How do they cool the exhaust? Normally even in closed cooling manifolds are still raw water cooled. So when these run no water exits the exhaust? I bet you run it on a hose and water exits thru your exhaust. The raw water has to exit somewhere. You had better figure out the path or you are setting yourself up for an expensive mistake.

My suggestion is take it to the dealer. It costs about $300 to have the complete boat winterized. Miss one little thing and you will pay $1000's.

The boat has a fresh water flush and no heater.

I've seen people do this: take a long garden hose, use a funnel and fill it with antifreeze/water mixed, once the hose is full (or you have enough of the mixture inside, you hook the hose up to a spigot, then hook it up to the flush connection on the boat, then turn on the spigot to pressurize the line, and lastly run the boat for a few seconds and allow it to suck up the mixture and effectively winterize it that way. The only trick is to not let the boat run too long, or it will cycle out all of the mixture. Not sure I'd recommend this if it gets really cold where you are.

Otherwise, I believe you have to do the following:

1. Remove hoses from the inlet and outlet of the crankshaft raw pump (located on the back of the engine).
2. Remove drain plug from the vdrive.
3. Remove end cap from the heat exchanger.
4. Remove drain plugs (blue) from the exhaust manifolds

This is spelled out in the owner's manual.

The exhaust manifold on an Indmar LS3 has two separate sections. In a salt water engine, the front section, the one with the individual exhaust tubes, is cooled with anti-freeze and the rear section with the catalytic converter is cooled with raw water. The rear section is self draining so there is nothing to worry about there. The components that need to be drained are the v-drive oil cooling chamber which is drained by removing the one or two plugs from the rear of the v-drive. The transmission and oil cooler which is on the side of the engine and can be drained by removing the hoses or the drain plug. The heat exchanger which can be drained by removing the drain plug or the 1 1/4 ID hose that supplies raw water to the heat exchanger. I would also take both hoses off the raw water pump to make sure it is drained.

I too have an indmar Ls3 salt water series. However, the OP might either have the indmar or MP Ls3. Indmar returns the raw water to the back side of the Cat, the Ls3 and 409 have a SS tube style manifold that do not have a detachable Cat or riser. On mine, the raw water goes through the perk flush then to the sea strainer, then passes through the V-drive coolant port, then to the raw water pump, then through the oil cooler, and THEN to the heat exchanger. After that it traveled to the down side of the manifold.

There is no way to drain these manifolds, nor would you need to. I would be more worried of getting the raw water out of the perk flush, sea strainer, v-drive, oil cooler, and heat exchanger. I have never winterized any boat so I'm not sure on the process. It never drops below 50 in my area,

Now if the OP has a MP LS3, that water path is probably completely different.

Yes I have a Marine Power LS3.....