Re: Tin addiction 18' Starcraft Chieftain
Got some must do work done today on the donor boat. Fired her up and fogged the crap out of it twice until it wanted to die while smoking out the exhaust. Drained the lower unit gear oil out, NO water intrusion! Happy happy happy as Phil would say...
First time winterizing a 4.3 MC so I hope I got everything opened up that has water in it. When the motor cooled enough, I pulled all 4 drain petcocks all the way out, (2 manifold, 2 block) lower water pump hose, hose from starboard manifold, hose from cooler under port manifold. Amazing how much water stays inside even after pulling out the 4 petcocks. When I pulled the hoses water poured out.
Also the port manifold petcock had a bunch of flakey crud backed up behind it when I pulled it out it coated my hand with flakes of what looked like rusted out metal. Problem somewhere in the cooling system or normal for a 1987 motor?
Those of you who do the winterizing every year chime in and let me know if I missed anything on my 4.3 please. I do not want a cracked block / manifold next spring. I'm hoping my hose pulling is a bit of over kill. I plan on replacing all of the hoses and belts before the re-install in the Chief, maybe even the water pump too.
Oh and I just got a rebate on my purchase price after pumping out 28 gallons of nice fresh gas from the donors belly tank, well over $100 worth of gas I put in my suburban. The guy told me he filled her up with no ethanol premium before he decided to sell.
Found the classic problem too of someone double decking to cover up the rotten original deck, no wonder the thing towed like a cement truck. Waterlogged and double decked, I also found a 2 x 10 and 2 x 4's that were put in. I swear, people do some dumb stuff throwing good money over bad rotten garbage.
Still trying to get the hull clean in the Chief but that 40+ year old grease is clinging to the aluminum like nothing I've seen. 3 dousing of Super clean and 2700 psi pressure washer just to make a dent in it.
