Any negatives to winterizing with bucket and pump?

[boatrboy]

I have seen several videos on winterizing but my friends wintereize by putting a pump in a bucket of antifreeze (non-toxic of course), start their machines, turn the pump on, turn pump off, stop their machine and whola. I have the manual which requires removing the appropriate hose and plugging others etc. but it seems that pumping the antifreeze is quite easy- so I ask the experts here - what are the negitives in doing it this way?

Thank,

Mark

 

[MotoBoat223]

I did it last winter with my boat, no problems. I do think antifreeze dripped out of the boat and could have caused a small amount of peeling finish on my ride plate. As a result this year I plan to follow up with some compressed air and hosing off the rear of the boat with water.

 

[Luv2Camp]

I use a bucket with a sump pump attached to it. I hook a hose from the sump pump to the reverse flush fitting, pinch off the intake hose and run the engine just like I was flushing it. I store it inside of my garage which rarely gets below 30 degrees in the winter so I am not sure if doing it this way would be ok for a ski that sits outside during hard freezes.

 

[jhjesse]

I do the same with all my skis with one exception. I have a catch pan to catch all the antifreeze so that I can reuse it in my other skis.

 

[MotoBoat223]

I use a bucket with a sump pump attached to it. I hook a hose from the sump pump to the reverse flush fitting, pinch off the intake hose and run the engine just like I was flushing it. I store it inside of my garage which rarely gets below 30 degrees in the winter so I am not sure if doing it this way would be ok for a ski that sits outside during hard freezes.

My garage is not heated and was below freezing quite a bit, the RV antifreeze I used is good for well below 0, I forget the exact temp. I didn't have any exhaust leaks or any problems, hopefully I never will haha.

 

[boatrboy]

I use a bucket with a sump pump attached to it. I hook a hose from the sump pump to the reverse flush fitting, pinch off the intake hose and run the engine just like I was flushing it. I store it inside of my garage which rarely gets below 30 degrees in the winter so I am not sure if doing it this way would be ok for a ski that sits outside during hard freezes.

Could you please elaborate? What is "reverse flush fitting" and why "pinch off intake hose". The videos and advice I had received was to connect the output hose of the pump to my flush fitting on the ski. Once running turn on the pump in the antifreeze and it will pump through the engine like hose flushing.
Jhjesse- Is this what you do (as I described)?

 

[boatrboy]

Could you please elaborate? What is "reverse flush fitting" and why "pinch off intake hose". The videos and advice I had received was to connect the output hose of the pump to my flush fitting on the ski. Once running turn on the pump in the antifreeze and it will pump through the engine like hose flushing.
Jhjesse- Is this what you do (as I described)?

I also wonder if the antifreeze needs the corrosion inhibitors since the motor is aluminum? I use a -50 for the water system on my boat and I'm wondering if this is fine for the jet ski also.

 

[mikidymac]

Any RV antifreeze is perfect. Follow the manual step by step. They pinch the hose to keep it from flowing out the back. You aren't running it on the hose to flush it out with the antifreeze.

 

[boatrboy]

Any RV antifreeze is perfect. Follow the manual step by step. They pinch the hose to keep it from flowing out the back. You aren't running it on the hose to flush it out with the antifreeze.

Thanks for the reply on the type of antifreeze. My original question was winterizing using the bucket method rather than disconnecting hoses per the manual so I am not sure what you meant by "You aren't running it on the hose to flush it out with the antifreeze."

 

[mikidymac]

Sorry I thought you were saying running it on the garden hose under pressure.

 

[Shortrun]

I need to do this soon, and have been reading.
But I do not understand why the engine needs to be started. Can someone explain?

 

[mikidymac]

The skis have a wet exhaust so without the engine running there is a chance for the water or antifreeze to fill up the exhaust enough to flow into the exhaust ports on the cylinders and get into the cylinders and crankcase.

 

[Shortrun]

Ok, thanks.
So is there any water cooling jackets in the exhaust system (that's what I thought) or it is just water getting squirted into the exhaust stream? Or antifreeze if you are trying to winterize things.

 

[mikidymac]

The pipe has a water jacket but at the end of it it dumps into the exhaust stream to cool the gasses.

 

[snikwad003]

Pinching the hose you speak of ensures that the antifreeze goes into the exhaust, and protects the exhaust from freezing, and not straight out the jet pump. Doing it while it is running keeps it from flooding the exhaust like mikidymac sed. With the line pinched and your bucket under the exhaust you can catch what comes out and let it circulate for a min or two.

 

[Shortrun]

Much appreciated folks.

 

[wfo speedracer]

Instead of a bucket and a pump ,I use a garden sprayer, hook up the hose , pump it up and wait till pink antifreeze runs out the back, takes about 30 seconds.

 

[mikidymac]

Now, that's a great idea.

 

[boatrboy]

Instead of a bucket and a pump ,I use a garden sprayer, hook up the hose , pump it up and wait till pink antifreeze runs out the back, takes about 30 seconds.

So after reading some of the posts here I am a little confused.... All of the videos I've seen (and discussions with some jet ski owners-non professionals) suggest to just hook up the antifreeze to the flush port while running and just pump it in until you see it coming out. I've never heard mention of "pinching off" the inlet hose. WFO - do you pinch this off with the garden sprayer method? Does this need to be done to wintereize properly? I did see a YouTube video of someone doing this (garden sprayer or the like) and while it was not a Seadoo there was no mention of pinching the inlet.

 

[wfo speedracer]

I don't pinch off the hose and I don't use the flush port, I take off the cooling hose at the rear of the head and my garden sprayer attachment goes there, I pump up the sprayer and watch for pink antifreeze to come out at the back of the jet pump, this takes around 30 seconds, once you see pink antifreeze cut off the garden sprayer, the garden sprayer does not have either the pressure or the volume to fill the pipe up and run antifreeze back into the cylinders through the exhaust ports, I have been doing them like this for over ten years now without issue.

One other thing if you have cranked up the ski and blown the water out of the waterbox there is not enough water in it to freeze and mess anything up, personally I always crank the ski up and blow the water out of the waterbox as soon as I pull the trailer out, then when I get home I repeat the procedure, you should do the same as water left in the waterbox can let moisture travel back into the engine through the open exhaust port causing rust issues.

 

[Sea Dood]

I have an easier and quicker setup. I have a drill pump with a short length of garden hose out both sides, the output side has a male garden hose fitting, the input side is bare hose. I screw this contraption into the flush port, chuck a cordless drill onto the drill pump, then open a gallon of RV antifreeze and stick the open end of the input hose into the gallon jug of antifreeze, start ski, run the drill until I see pink coming out the ass end, stop the drill, blip the throttle a few times to blow the antifreeze out of the water box, done. By the time others have been dumping antifreeze into buckets, setting up pumps, unfastening hoses, etc, I am already done winterizing.

I have two skis, both 4TEC's. It only takes less than a half gallon per ski, so the one jug is all I need, done. The whole winterizing process is only a couple minutes tops for both skis.

 

[Luv2Camp]

You pinch off the intake hose when you are reverse flushing. If you do not pinch it off, you will have antifreeze just pouring out of the line and wasting it. I am thinking that pinching off the hose also puts more pressure on the reverse flush?

 

[boatrboy]

So I found an old bilge pump from my boat and connected to a cigarette plug to make a flush pump by adding a hose and fitting. Today I winterized but have a little concern.

To start with I lifted my trailer with ski to gravity drain as much water as I can. I filled a bucket with two gallons rv antifreeze, started motor then started pump. The pink came out the jet pump area (exhaust, fittings, etc) but it never came out the tell tale. This concerned me so I revved it for a few minutes. 2 gallons later still nothing. Now the bilge pump does not have near the pressure my garden hose has so I am hoping I do not need to redo this with a higher pressure sump pump. I have full strength pink out the back for sure and pulled the line off the exhaust that goes to tell tale and it was clear.
Any thoughts...

 

[snikwad003]

So I found an old bilge pump from my boat and connected to a cigarette plug to make a flush pump by adding a hose and fitting. Today I winterized but have a little concern.

To start with I lifted my trailer with ski to gravity drain as much water as I can. I filled a bucket with two gallons rv antifreeze, started motor then started pump. The pink came out the jet pump area (exhaust, fittings, etc) but it never came out the tell tale. This concerned me so I revved it for a few minutes. 2 gallons later still nothing. Now the bilge pump does not have near the pressure my garden hose has so I am hoping I do not need to redo this with a higher pressure sump pump. I have full strength pink out the back for sure and pulled the line off the exhaust that goes to tell tale and it was clear.
Any thoughts...

You need to pinch the line coming from the jet pump and put your bucket under where the exhaust outlet is and do it again. With out pinching off the feed from the jet pump you dont make enough pressure to force it into the rest of the lines and push all the water out. :cheers:

 

[boatrboy]

Update:
After reading all the replies and worrying about it this much - I said screw it - I went and bought a set of hose punchers at Harbor freight and wintereized as the manual states. It was not as complicated as I first thought. The manual shows pictures of which hose to pinch and which order to release them. Now I feel better about my new motor sleeping all winter :thumbsup: :cheers: