Posted by Allan Morrison (66.73.2.151) on December 16, 2004 at 15:56:08:
In Reply to: Winterizing >>> KISS method posted by Budge on 13:09:06 11/21/04:
It was blowing great guns on the lakefront when I did this,(50 mph + gusts) and the boat, a Newport 27, with standing mast acting as a big guitar string, shook and vibrated the hull on its five flimsy adjustable pipe stands, while I did some sympathetic shaking having squirmed down into the starboard locker, wondering if the boat would go over and smush me, all the while holding on to the intake hose on the fresh water pump, pouring nasty antifreeze into a makeshift funnel, while my trusty Cap't Julius cranked the engine over and over and each time the two blade foldable prop would clack and spin and the antifreeze level in the funnel in my slimy hand go down. After one gallon of the toxic stuff, we saw the green s..t coming out of the exhaust, and as the engine was cold, I wondered "what the hay?" So I took out the small plug on the port side of the block and the green pseudoalcohol flowed out, and I thought, "this ain't supposed to be." So to make sure (as our winters in Chicago tend to cool down a bit -- 0 degrees Fahrenheit predicted for this Sunday), I though I better check out how the coolant sneaked past the thermostat into the block, so I unscrewed the thermostat housing and lifted it up, and lo and behold my mechanical genius was glorified for there was no thermostat in there. So probably what happened was that the poor venerable engine ran hot and the fool who had given us the white elepha...excuse me, the boat, had probably boldly pulled the thermostat out and thrown it overboard at some previous time in an overheated rage. So there be a lesson, nothing gets past the thermostat in a cold engine, and if it does, beware. Maybe I'll tell you about what we did after we found two feet of hydrogenated oxygen in the bilge with four quarts of emulsified dinosaur fluid floating on top of it, having escaped from the "no front oil seal" atomic four engine, after we took possession of the boat. But that is for the next forum, the one about who knows the most cuss words.