Winterizing a 2016 SV with the H5 engine.

[CO Surfer 289]

Here's how I winterized my SV233 with the H5 engine. I owe a big thanks to Stoked for already providing a lot of this information in a previous post.

Steps I took:

1. Changed oil and filter using this: https://www.amazon.com/Jabsco-17850-1012-Premium-Marine-Changer/dp/B001CX0WX4

You will want to warm up your engine for several minutes to get the oil warm enough to flow. This oil changer works by putting the clear plastic tube down the oil dipstick tube. Takes probably about 10 minutes to empty with warm oil. Place a ziplock bag (pretty sure I used the gallon size) over the filter when removing the filter to catch all of the oil and not have it drip into your boat.

 

2. Pull all your blue drain plugs. There are 9 on the H5. All of them are pretty easy to see/find with the exception of the V drive. That one is hidden. Here are some photos: There are 3 on the port side; 5 on the starboard side; and 1 on the V drive. I screwed all of the blue plugs into the holder that's attached to one of the engine dividers to make sure I got them all.

 

3. Pull your heater lines where they are connected to the engine and either blow out with an air compressor using a blow gun (don't get carried away with too much air; the heater cores are just tubes) or use a shop vac to blow them out (thanks H2O King!).

 

4. Now put all of the blue plugs back into where you pulled them out of. Be gentle with these putting them back in. It's easy to cross thread them and screw them up. Go easy and you won't have any issues.

 

5. Add 5-6 gallons of antifreeze to the engine. I ended up adding a T kit to my raw water intake to make this easy. Here's what I used: More to follow in the next post.

[CO Surfer 289]

More on the T flush connection. These things aren't cheap but they're very nice. They come with an integrated plug that is in place all of the time except when you want to connect a hose for flushing. The kit comes with an adapter that threads into the tee where the plug usually is. The plug has a metal ring that clips over a protrusion that locks it in place. I ended up having to remove a plastic adapter that screw into the factory ball valve where the raw water thru hull fitting is. Once you remove the plastic adapter, the T flush kit screws right in. I used both teflon tape and paste to ensure I don't have any leaks. Reconnect the factory hose and you're done. Some photos of the process:

 

Now, remove the plug from the T flush connection and install the hose adapter. This is a quarter turn fitting that allows a hose to screw on.

 

I also bought a fitting from bucketape.com (another big thanks to Stoked) that allows you to fill via a bucket.

 

Fill the bucket with about 4 gallons of antifreeze to start. The head pressure will fill your strainer with antifreeze.

 

Make sure your raw water ball valve is closed before filling the bucket with antifreeze. Note on antifreeze: There is more than one type of RV/Marine antifreeze. The preferred antifreeze is straight pink propylene glycol. The cheap pink stuff has alcohol in it and should not be used for this process where the antifreeze will eventually go back in the lake. The cheap stuff ($2/gallon) is the stuff not to use.

 

Once you see the antifreeze in the strainer and you have all of the plugs back in the engine, go ahead and fire up the engine. Note that the engine will pull the antifreeze out of the bucket FAST. I was pouring in another 2 gallons within about 10 seconds of starting the engine. I did not run the engine for more than 30 seconds before all of the antifreeze was used up.

 

You should see antifreeze come out the exhaust.

[CO Surfer 289]

I need to add that prior to doing these steps, I added about 30 ounces of Sta-bil fuel stabilizer to a full tank of fuel and drove the boat to my house to make sure it was fully mixed. PCM does not recommend fogging the engine cylinders on these engines.

 

I ended up pulling all of my blue drain plugs again after I filled with antifreeze for a couple of reasons. #1, I wanted to make sure I got antifreeze into all parts of the engine since I only ran the engine for about 30 seconds (I did). #2, I wanted to ensure that I had straight antifreeze in the engine and not diluted by any water. Since I had completely drained the engine prior to introducing the antifreeze, it was straight antifreeze when I was done. I also have some slight concern that leaving antifreeze in the block could (I doubt it but it could) cause issues since the antifreeze will slush up at temps around 0 degrees F. I really think this is a non-issue and likely will leave the antifreeze in the engine over the winter next year. It takes me about 10-15 minutes to pull all of the plugs so it was not a big deal to confirm #1 and #2 above.

 

Additional steps are to pull all of my loose cushions and put them in the garage where no rodents can get to them and give the boat a very thorough cleaning and waxing prior to putting her away for the winter.

[CO Surfer 289]

One other item I did was to pull the impeller. On the H5, there is an idler pulley that takes a 1/2" drive ratchet with a short extension to relieve the tension on the belt. Here's a photo of the ratchet in place on the idler pulley:

 

Relieve the tension and remove the belt. Take a 10mm socket (with an extension) and remove the 3 bolts holding the water pump pulley in place.

The bolts will not come all the way out. They are held in by an o-ring. Pull the pulley off and remove the impeller. I took a photo of it before pulling it out to make sure I put it in correctly in the spring (fins bent in the right direction). Place the impeller on your dash so you don't forget to reinstall it next spring. Mine has 125 hours on it so it will go to spare duty and I will install a new one in the spring.

 

I will also install new fuel filters once they arrive.

 

Here's a list of part numbers for the H5 engine:

Oil Filter R077001

Fuel Filter (Spin On) R077019

Fuel Filter (Canister) RP080026

Impeller RP061022

 

I found that it pays to check the following two sites for prices. www.bakesonline.com and www.nautiqueparts.com.

 

 

[CO Surfer 289]

A few other items. When you're done winterizing with the antifreeze, make sure you put the plug back in the T flush connection and open the ball valve back up.

It would be a bad day next spring if your raw water ball valve was still closed when you went to fire up the engine for the first time. Note that this photo shows the plug installed in the T flush connection but the raw water ball valve in the closed position. I opened it after I was finished with the antifreeze.

 

I also had an interference on my boat with the V drive drain plug and the boat T plug.

 

One of those Centurion things that aggravate some of us. It is just barely possible to get both removed. I have not been able to get the T plug back in yet. I may just buy a different plug so I don't have to deal with this every year.

Edited October 13, 2016 by CO Surfer

[CO Surfer 289]

One last comment is to do all of this at your own risk. The dealers that do this know their stuff and do a lot of boats every year. If you're not comfortable doing this yourself, take it to a dealer. I've always done all of my vehicle work myself so I'm very comfortable doing this kind of stuff. Not to mention, my dealer is 4 1/2 hours away from me so it's a no brainer for me. You can screw up a very expensive engine if you do it incorrectly. I will give the Fineline guys credit (or PCM) for making it very obvious where all of the drain lines/plugs are on this particular engine.

[stoked 1,039]

1. Changed oil and filter using this: https://www.amazon.com/Jabsco-17850-1012-Premium-Marine-Changer/dp/B001CX0WX4

 

Nice write up! ^^ This is worth it's weight in gold!! ^^ I use it for everything, cars, boats, skis. I used to use a hand pump one, man I was in the stone age...

[Bongo Fury 640]

One last comment is to do all of this at your own risk. The dealers that do this know their stuff and do a lot of boats every year. If you're not comfortable doing this yourself, take it to a dealer. I've always done all of my vehicle work myself so I'm very comfortable doing this kind of stuff. Not to mention, my dealer is 4 1/2 hours away from me so it's a no brainer for me. You can screw up a very expensive engine if you do it incorrectly. I will give the Fineline guys credit (or PCM) for making it very obvious where all of the drain lines/plugs are on this particular engine.

 

That would be me.....Hillside does all the work on my boat and it always runs perfectly!

[CO Surfer 289]

Here are a few more tips for changing the fuel filters. The parts you'll need for the H5 (and I'm guessing several other PCM engines):

Note you only need the impeller kit if you plan on changing that out. Mine has 125 hours on it and still looks ok but I will put in the new one next spring and keep the old one as a spare.

 

The primary fuel filter is the white spin on filter. This one is easy and self explanatory.

 

The second one is the fuel filter without the casing. This one is a little more of a bear. There are 3 connectors that need to be unplugged. You just need to look at them to see how they come apart. One has a tab that lifts up. The other two have tabs you push to unlatch them. There are then 3 allen bolts to remove the filter. I believe they were 7/16" allen bolts. The owner's manual tells you to remove the fuel drain on the bottom of the canister and to then remove the fuel line from the bottom of the low pressure fuel pump. I did neither.

 

The trick with the fuel line is to remove it where it attaches to the primary fuel filter (the white spin on filter). You can see where I removed it in this photo:

Note that this photo also shows the FCC canister removed and the old fuel filter removed from the fuel pump.

 

A little bit of fuel will come out. I had a small plastic tray I used to catch the fuel. Now you can pull the FCC canister out part ways by snaking the fuel line between the other hoses on the boat to give you a little room to work. It will make sense once you get in there. I think it would be virtually impossible to remove the fuel line at the bottom of the low pressure fuel pump. You just can't get in there with anything.

 

Now I undid the steel hose clamp that connects the FCC canister to the top of the FCC unit. Once this is undone, just pull the canister off. It does not unscrew. It just pulls straight off. There is fuel in the canister so be aware of this. Pull the canister all the way off and set it aside. You can see it removed in the above photo.

 

Take the canister and pour the fuel into a container.

Note that the canister is upside down in the photo and the fuel drain plug is still attached. You can see the old filter is somewhat dirty. There was absolutely no water in the canister. It was straight gas.

 

The old filter just pulls off of the fuel pump and the new one presses on. It will be obvious and take a little bit of pressure to put the new one on. The filter kit comes with 2 smaller o-rings and 1 big o-ring. My boat only used the 2 smaller o-rings. I used some silicone spray on the o-rings once installed to lubricate them. Push the FCC canister back on being careful with the o-rings; hook up the fuel line; reconnect the 3 electrical connectors; and tighten up the clamp and you're done.

Edited October 16, 2016 by CO Surfer

[DarksideR 1,679]

Excellent, EXCELLENT thread! Very well done. One question on the flush kit. I imagine you must have had to cut the original hose down a bit to allow room for the kit? What did you use to cut it? I used an angle grinder on my old boats hose. Worked good.

[CO Surfer 289]

I actually did not have to cut the hose. I thought I would have to but it just moved the strainer up a little higher which was actually preferable. I did end up trimming a little bit of the hose with a utility knife at which point I found the metal inside the hose. That ended any thought of trying to cut it down at all.

There is a black plastic fitting that is OEM that is screwed into the ball valve that you will remove and discard. That saves probably about an inch. The additional 2"-3" that the strainer moves up after adding the flush kit was just a benefit.

I really like the flush kit. It is very well made and makes adding antifreeze easy.

[stoked 1,039]

I've done it a couple of ways. I've used a utility knife, then cut through the metal with wire cutters. A fine hacksaw blade in a sawsall (if room allows it), and my PVC pipe cutter (still had to use the wire cutters). It's a scary hose to cut, gravy if you can get by without cutting it!

[DarksideR 1,679]

Boy is my back sore. Winterized and somewhat detailed the boat today. Sad sad day. Wanted to add a couple points.

This:

 

Is where you should syphon the oil from. I tried going through the dipstick tube on my last boat and got the tube jammed and almost pulled off the dipstick pipe retrieving the syphon tube.

 

No clearance issue at the V-drive drain on my boat.

 

Also, I pulled some RV antifreeze through each of the ballast pumps by removing the bags and placing the fill/drain hoses in a bucket with the antifreeze and tapped drain for a couple seconds. Don't think this was totally necessary, but I did it anyways. Except for the bow pump. So... fingers crossed on that one.

 

Also, I had to go the fake-a-lake route as I didn't have the flush point yet. I'm looking for a more affordable one for next year.

 

 

Sad...sad, day. Lol

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[h20king 794]

Love that you still have the shipping cover. I have mine as well not sure what I'll use it for as my boat is stored indoors but it is so nice I had to make sure I got it. Can't believe most of the time dealers just throw them away.

[DarksideR 1,679]

Love that you still have the shipping cover. I have mine as well not sure what I'll use it for as my boat is stored indoors but it is so nice I had to make sure I got it. Can't believe most of the time dealers just throw them away.

My boat is going to be under cover for the winter, but apparently it's kind of dusty, so this will add some protection from that.

I guess, realistically, with this extra cover and the boat winterized, I could just keep it out front my house, but nah.