Winterizing Ballast system???

[LSV04]

I dropped my boat off last season and was charged 75.00 to winterize the ballast system on my boat. It seems like I could do this myself.Has anyone done this? He also ripped me off on the engine so Ill probably do it myself this year-what are the steps-I dont want to do damage over the winter .

thanks

[Buttafewcoe]

For the ballast system, I just took my wet/dry vac and placed the suction end over the hoses to remove the water in the lines. On the '04 Outback, mine has 3 through hull fittings, one bilge, two drains, which I used the vac to remove water in the lines. Then where the fat sac actually hooks up to the fill and drain hoses, did the same thing. That seemed to work ok for the ballast system last year. Just turn the pumps on for a few seconds while the vac is over the hoses. That way it should remove water on both sides. I will do the same this year.
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The engine is a bit more complicated and would be hard to cover in a simple post. Read the owners manual, then use a little common sense. Any place which water will stand, esp. in plastic hoses, lines, and engine will be a potential threat. I was able to use the info in the manual to 'git 'er done'. But this isn't my 1st boat. I had a stern drive that I could get out in the middle of winter on nice days, then re-winterize that afternoon. North Carolina is like that this time of year. When the wind blows from north, it's cold......from the south, it's warm. I haven't perfected the cycle on this inboard yet. Don't know that I would risk missing something important.
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Hope this helps
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Butta

[lowdrag]

Just disconnect the hoses near the fill pump and solenoids and drain the water from them. I take the bags out, open them up and hang them in the garage over the winter. I suppose you could find a way to connect a hose to the system and pump a few gallons of antifreeze into it to make sure, but I would really worried about what the antifreeze would do to the plastic parts in the pumps over the winter.

Check out Indmar's website to get the step by step winterization. They've got a manual you can download that does a pretty good job running you through it step by step.