« February 2004 | Main | January 2005 »

December 06, 2004

First Year's Winterization

Start talking about the when and how of winterization early in October but then announce that you are thinking about participating in the Parade of Lights in December giving you a legitimate excuse to languish. Then proceed to buy a $500 engine/bilge room heater from West Marine that you aren't really sure will work if the temperature gets below 42 degrees because you have to test the crazy thing by spraying into this little hole with freeze spray for 5 minutes, so the temperature could be 50 degrees or 0 degrees for all that you know.

The first 10 steps of winterization seem to require lots of discussion of what the steps should be during the months of September, October, and November. Every once in awhile, one of us actually refers to the CARVER manual. Funny thing, those little issues you experienced during the summer are now cropping up during the winterization routine. Why did some CARVER engineer decide to place that thing over there instead of where it should be in the diagram? Do they just assume that everybody wants to stand down in the engine room for hours tracing things?

About half of the first 10 steps involve trips to the boat to actually perform some of the work because it seems like a very nice day to perform these duties...hmmm, why is it that all 5 of those trips ended up with us at the wall at Georgetown? The next 10 steps to winterization entailed making 10 separate trips to West Marine and Boat US - lucky for us we have both to waste our money in. I love the fact that neither West Marine nor BoatUS actually carry ANYTHING for diesel engines or generators, or that we could not have an intelligent conversation about what to order because they could not understand that it does NOT matter that the boat is a CARVER 444 and that their little computer application does not even list CARVER as a boat manufacturer, but it matters a LOT that they are CUMMINS 370B diesels and an ONAN generator and requires part number 999999 or an equivalent. BUT they had 50 million bottles of pink anti-freeze. About the time that I was ordering a case of oil filters and fuel filters online, I could think of 50 million things to do with that pink anti-freeze without it even leaving the store.

Finally the winterization begins - this plug isn't in the right vantage point, another hose clamp won't turn now that it hasn't been turned in 9 months, and amazingly the thru-hull seacocks and engine oil drain plugs are at the bottom of the engine (who knew???) requiring 9 foot long arms as the oil changers don't actually work on this because it won't pump out one tiny drop of oil, and a need for exactly 60 pounds of torque on one thing and exactly 24 pounds of torque on something else. Do we even know what torque is or did somebody come up with this so that you have to hire some type of marine expert who says just turn it until it stops?

And each activity seems to require 5 more trips to West Marine or Home Depot to buy or create some kind of tool to accomplish this one feat. Geez, whose bright idea was it to perform the winterization ourselves because gee, how hard could it be to put antifreeze in anything that can freeze? Well, that would be the same stupid captain that bought that $500 engine room heater.

Ten cases of pink stuff later and we have the water system, sanitation system, and air conditioning / heat system winterized, but still trying to figure out if we could possibly teach the three year-old how to get under that engine and unscrew that plug!!!!

Posted by Kimberly on December 6, 2004 11:00 PM

December 05, 2004

Diesel Winterization Continues

I went down to the boat today to continue winterizing the engines. At least, it started that way. The fuel and oil filters that I ordered last week did show up on Friday. My intention was to do an oil change on the genset and both diesels. I also wanted to finish up the heads and A/C units.

The first thing I did was to bring the diesels online to warm them up, charge the batteries, and to circulate the oil. I also started the genset and brought it under load to give it a workout. During this time, I pulled up all of the flooring in the salon to give full access to the engines. After about 15 minutes, I began bringing the engines off-line to allow for some cool down. During the cool down period, I decided to get the final pump out for the season. We had winterized the forward head a couple of weeks ago. We just had to finish the aft head. We have the luxury of doing a pump out in our slip. The hose is long enough to go from the gas dock to our slip. After getting a good evacuation and a couple of rinse cycles, we sealed off the head, added about 4 gallons of 50/50 solution and secured the power. Both holding tanks have about 5 gallons of 50/50 solution and should suffice throughout the winter.

Also during this time, Kimberly had prepared six gallons of 50/50 solution for the air conditioning units. My intent was to pull the single feed line from the seacock and feed the solution from this point. Yeah, fat chance. After loosening the hose clamps and moving them out of the way, I tried to remove the hose - it wasn't moving. It's not that it was stuck - it's just geometry and leverage. Carver engineers decided to put the A/C seacock right under the starboard engine with about four inches of clearance above the hose. The seacock is also set back about eight inches and is directly underneath the forward port engine mount. Due to the engine mount and various lines and hoses, it is near impossible to reach the seacock from the centerline or top. You can only get your hand (not hands) on it from underneath the front of the engine. The first length of tubing is about 12 inches long with two bends in it going from the seacock to the intake of the sea strainer. There isn't enough give in the hose to twist or lift up off the nipple on the seacock. Okay, on to Plan B.

I decided to replace the hose clamps and made sure the other three sets were secure. I did try briefly to remove the second line of hose aft of the sea strainer, but it is much shorter and definitely not going anywhere. I decided to attack the problem from the sea strainer. I pulled the strainer and did a complete evacuation of the strainer and the intake hose. Then I positioned the six gallons of 50/50 solution and proceeded to cycle each of the three units one by one. On the 444, there is one intake for all three units and one discharge port. I had Kimberly watch the discharge port and call on the walkie-talkie when the discharge was running pink. As each unit came online, I kept the sea strainer full of 50/50 solution - not an easy feat. This particular setup will gulp down a gallon of solution in about 30 seconds. After feeding six gallons through the system, we prepared two addition gallons to ensure the system was topped off. We cycled the units again and fed the two gallons through.

By now, it was starting to get late and I decided to forgo the genset and just concentrate on the diesels. I connected the hand pump and proceeding to pump out the oil through the dipstick. I thought it would be easy enough - nope. After pumping for about two minutes, I hadn't even gained a drop of oil. After playing with various hose combinations and set-ups, I decided that I needed to consult the manuals and see if there were any suggestions. Yep - Cummins suggests that you drain the oil through either the front or rear drain plugs. Hmmm...does anybody at Cummins own a boat? The front and rear drain plugs are less than eight inches from the hull and certainly not in reach or accessible. If the diesels were up on stands, it would be a no brainer. However, when they are mounted, it just is not going to work. After about hour of messing with this, I decided to call it quits and do some more research. I'm thinking that I might need a better pump and try using the dipstick like a big straw. Wait, didn't I try that in the beginning? Oh well, I will attack it on another day. Heck, we've got several more weeks before the first snow.

At least I winterized the ice maker without problems.

Posted by Jerry on December 5, 2004 08:34 PM