How long does it take to change a boat engine's antifreeze? About 6 weeks. That's how it goes on a naked boat.
I discovered that you shouldn't mix different types of antifreeze. After that, I discovered that pink antifreeze may be bad for seals in older diesel engines. Lastly, I can't open the little tap that drains the coolant from the engine block.
I couldn't open the little tap with my bare hand, even after soaking it with DW-40, and I'm not about to use a wrench. It's hidden behind the oil filter in a hard-to-reach place, and snapping it would imply a major headache. In this stage of the game I need less pain and more pleasure.
After finally finding blue antifreeze at an auto parts store, I got to work using the drink and piss method, which is not painful at all.
The whole Kubota engine takes 7.5 l of coolant. Because I can drain only about 3 liters from the coolant tank, I decided on the following procedure:
I discovered that you shouldn't mix different types of antifreeze. After that, I discovered that pink antifreeze may be bad for seals in older diesel engines. Lastly, I can't open the little tap that drains the coolant from the engine block.
I couldn't open the little tap with my bare hand, even after soaking it with DW-40, and I'm not about to use a wrench. It's hidden behind the oil filter in a hard-to-reach place, and snapping it would imply a major headache. In this stage of the game I need less pain and more pleasure.
After finally finding blue antifreeze at an auto parts store, I got to work using the drink and piss method, which is not painful at all.
 |
| Pee into the pan please. |
- drain the coolant tank
- refill it with distilled water
- run the engine until the tank is hot
- shut the engine down and let it cool
- drain the coolant tank again
- repeat the process 8 times
- in the last operation, uncouple the long hose connecting the heat exchange to the engine to remove another 1/2 liter
- pour 3.5 l of pure blue antifreeze into the tank, run the engine to mix it up.
One more drink and piss operation and I can finally add the antifreeze and move on to the task of scraping the propeller and checking the bottom growth. If it's really bad I may haul out this year.
In the middle of all this drinking and pissing I took a trip to Gibraltar, to be covered in my next post.
I gotta hand it to you Horacio, you've got a way with words!
ReplyDeleteGood trick avoiding pain, even though 8 times doesn't sound too pleasurable... I guess it's all relative. I assume you don't do this often.
Thanks for the heads up on the pink (expensive) stuff. I just use the cheap pre mixed blue stuff due to the fact that it gets mostly drained every year due to..... oh crap, I don't want to get into that now!
Thanks Pete, but I need more action in my blog and less words.
DeleteActually, 5 liters of the German-made pure blue antifreeze cost me €28...no austerity in that price. It's raining again. Should have stayed in Gibraltar. Already checked out the marina prices and anchoring there. It's a plan.