No Water coming out of the port side block drain, Plugged?

[berlinbai]

I was winterizing the boat yesterday and found it odd that there wasn't any water coming out of the port side drain, while the other 4 drains do. later on I put a tiny wire brush into the drain about 1.5-2 inches deep, still nothing only a few drops of very dark water come out.
any ideas?

thanks

 

[Lou C]

You need to get a set of picks and dig out the rust in the drain hole. I had this once on my 4.3 and a few years ago when I had the heads off I really cleaned it out. If water does not drain it will crack the block there so get on it.

 

[berlinbai]

You need to get a set of picks and dig out the rust in the drain hole. I had this once on my 4.3 and a few years ago when I had the heads off I really cleaned it out. If water does not drain it will crack the block there so get on it.

Thanks,
That's what I thought too. I was just doing this on my parents' 4.3, port side so water as well but as soon as I put a screwdriver in the water poured out. with my 5.0 tho, the wire brush went in 2INCHES and still nothing. make me wonder if something else is going on.

 

[Bt Doctur]

Get yourself a hose from a washing machine , cut it in half, insert a 1/4 inch barb nipple, screw into block, back flush with garden hose

 

[H20Rat]

You can also use a regular old garden hose with a pressure nozzle. Shove it up there and blast away. Although I doubt you could get a good enough seal, keep in mind there isn't meant to be a great deal of pressure in the system.

 

[tank1949]

If salt water motor, then this is an omen of pending failures. These motors rust out, usually heads followed by hydro-lock. Sorry!

 

[Scott06]

If what BT is suggesting in post 4 doesn’t work you can knock the freeze plugs out of the block if you can access them. Can replace with a rubber expansion plug once you clean the jackets out of debris hopefully just sand and silt

 

[Lou C]

My starboard side one always drained but slower than the port, however once I took the time a few years back to get out the picks and really dig it out, it drains much better the last few winterizations. I would not worry about the block rusting through, I have not heard of that happening even here where we are 100% salt water but it is possible for the heads to rust through behind the valve seat area. In fact when I took my engine apart (blown HGs) 2 years ago and had the heads checked, the machinist felt the cooling passages were getting eroded and if they re-surfaced the heads they might not seal against the new HGs, and that to me also suggests a loss of cast iron. So I went with re-man heads that gave the old 4.3 a new lease on life.
Just because your drain is clogged it does not mean the block is about to rot through. Now I have always filled up this engine (manually, after manual draining) with -100 marine af with corrosion inhibitors, not sure if this really helped, but then again the short block is 32 years old and run in salt, at least half that.

 

[Lou C]

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