Can you make "Pink Stuff" Antifreeze?

[sgharford]

Can you make your own winterizing antifreeze (aka Pink Stuff)? I'm sure most of contents is water. Buying 40 gallons of this stuff is not only expensive but a real pain to get on the boat.

[Boatsb]

40 gallons? What are you doing with all that?

Sounds like you need a new winterizing plan.

2 heads, 3 sinks, 2 showers and an icemaker should be about 3-4 gallons max depending on how you do it.

[sgharford]

Well - I pump about 12 gallons thru each Cummins 903 engine thru seacocks (I installed those funky Groco SBV thru-hulls that have built in port for hose connection or crash pump stranier 2 years ago - fills basket strainer and about 10' of 6" hose as well), about 2 gallons for generator, another 2-3 gallons for 2 x a/c condensing units and the rest I pour into 'as empty as I can get it' fresh water tank where I then use fresh water pump to run it thru cold and hot water system (sinks, showers and toilets into holding tank). Granted I have wasted a bunch filling up 9 gallon hot water heater in the past which I am going to bypass this year and simply drain.

Any and all feedback greatly welcomed (just don't call me a dumb ass, my mother called me a dumbass - once, only once!).

[Boatsb]

I never used the pink for engines. Methanol a few times but never the pink. It was usually too expensive to run the pink ( non toxic ) in anything but the water system.

[sgharford]

So what do you use in the engines - Methanol?

[Boatsb]

Out of the water usually but in the many years I kept the boat in the water in Patchogue I drained out the RW system and blew it out with air. Most of my winters I used the boat through new years.

[Boatsb]

Oh yeah. Forgot to say we pumped the methanol in. It's not good to use it when the engines are running. Fire is a bad thing.

[MikeP]

Takes me about 24 gal of pink for our 53MY. Re engines - 6 gal of pink pumped in at the Heat exchanger zinc fitting is what I do with each of our 8V71TIs. A total of 12 for the engines. Another 8 or so pumped through the FW system/visible out each tap, windshield washers, dish washer, clothes washer and a gallon for each head. I drain/close off the hot water heater and ensure the FW tank is as empty as the FW pump can make it. I don't put any pink in the hot water heater but I put about a gallon in the FW tank to ensure the connection between the two tanks can't freeze/break. All seacock strainers have some pink poured/sucked in.

When I first acquired the boat I used nearly 40 gal but found that to be unnecessary.

I don't trust compressed air - two friends who used only air one winter had ruptured lines.

[REBrueckner]

I'm not familiar with the Cummins raw water system specifically, but 12 gals is A LOT for anything but a locomotive size engine...

If you have someone observe at the exhaust while idling the engine, and provide pink at the seacock intake, as soon as pink is observed at the exhaust shut down the engine...should be no more than two or three gallons....

for a/c, after shutting the seacock(s), same procedure.....a quart or two per a/c unit....

[sgharford]

Calculating the internal volume of 10' of 6" hose would be about 8 or so gallons. Plus a gallon for the strainers - starts adding up on engines. I could recapture those 8 or so gallons when I flip seacock back to open position if I had a 10 gallon bucket underneath (dry storage). That could save me 16 gallons right there. Could use the 1st 8 gallons in 2nd engine, then the next 8 gallons in generator and AC winterization. I wouldn't want to put any in fresh water system after being in strainer and hose. So probably save about 12 gallons right there. By passing the hot water heater will save me another 9 gallons , so I (theoretically) just cut my consumption from 40 gallons to 19 gallons.

I'll have to look into methanol more too as I do pump it in while engine is not running anyway.