Winterization Glitch

[splashlog]

Boat came out last week, A4 was not running, pulled the starter off for a rebuild. Now with cold days drawing near (-5C by this Thursday night) and no engine working I figured I could use the house water pump to get the pina colada into the A4. Seemed to work great. then I went to fog the cylinders and hand turn the flywheel, whoooooosh, #4 cylnder shot out a good load, got me in the eye..
So what now?
Try and suck the juice out somehow and and squirt a ton of MMO in there and wait for spring?
Pull the head?
Why is there juice in the #4 Cylnder?
What have I done?
Help..

[edwardc]

What have I done?

What you did is the equivalent of extended cranking with the seacock open. The pump pushed antifreeze thru the system until the waterlift muffler filled up. With no exhaust pressure to empty the waterlift, it backed up all the way to the manifold, and entered any cylinders that happened to have the exhaust valves open at that time.

You need to turn it over on the starter with the plugs out to get as much antifreeze out as possible, then liberally dose each cylinder with MMO and hand turn it over to distribute it to the rings and cyl walls. Might also be a good idea to visit it periodically in the winter and hand turn it a little to make sure it doesn't seize.

In the future, if you need to winterize with an external pump, you first need to disconnect the hose from the exhaust manifold to the water injection fitting. This will avoid the problem, but you'll have to remove the plug from the bottom of the waterlift to drain it.

[Aj@yknot]

and here's me looking through the forum for tips on what to do to my A4 now that I'm in a cradle so it doesn't turn into an ice cube tonight (-7c expected)....

Wait, theres a PLUG on the waterlift?

Thanks for the tip!

[Surcouf]

first time I see freezing temperatures arrive and I do not sweat of fear trying to figure out if I did winterization of my A4 properly... On the other end my engine is now in 40+ pieces on my garage floor, with no certainty I will ever be able to put it back together, but the assurance that if it dies, it will not be by freezing in November 2019.

Good luck with emptying and MMO-ing your cylinders. One of my colleagues did that on a different engine last year. When he realized his mistake, and afraid to use the crank to empty his cylinders, he started by sucking as much water as possible through the plugs opening with his "oil change manual pump" from West Marine. Once he had as much as possible out, he threw a couple spoons of MMO and then cranked a long time (this time with the water valve closed!) to remove all water. then more MMO. Then more cranking. Then oil change

[splashlog]

waterlift plug

I have no waterlift plug. I have no waterlift. Solves that problem..

[Peter]

So the mystery remains then as to what happened. Ed's perfectly reasonable explanation relied on a water lift muffler.

[joe_db]

1. Take the water hose from the manifold off the exhaust and let it drain into the bilge or a bucket.
2. Use some combo of a shop vac and turning the engine over to remove antifreeze from the engine.
3. Apply MMO.
4. Redo the antifreeze injection. It should come out of the hose in the bilge/bucket. Remember to block the bypass.
5. If you fill up the cylinder again you have a problem. If not, not

[Surcouf]

even without a lift at the exhaust, depending on how freely your exhaust gets water out of your boat, you still could have experienced a flow back of water in your engine exhaust valves; your house pump may have delivered a much higher flow than what your A4 pump usually delivers...

To make sure this was the issue, you could repeat that operation (if not too cold outside...) but drain water at the water side of the manifold discharge directly to the floor, not "re-injecting it" into the exhaust pipe. And see if you get water in the cylinders again.

Good luck if you are in the artic blast path...

[edwardc]

1. Take the water hose from the manifold off the exhaust and let it drain into the bilge or a bucket.
2. Use some combo of a shop vac and turning the engine over to remove antifreeze from the engine.
3. Apply MMO.
4. Redo the antifreeze injection. It should come out of the hose in the bilge/bucket. Remember to block the bypass.
5. If you fill up the cylinder again you have a problem. If not, not

+1 ..........

[edwardc]

... Wait, theres a PLUG on the waterlift?

Thanks for the tip!

Typical stainless waterlift (the one sold by MMI):