Winterizing Crusader 454 gas engines

[SeaSwick]

All the posts' have things covered on anti-freeze, fogging, oil additives etc. (Check your fresh-water cooling zincs too!) But one thing I'm doing is EMPTYING MY FUEL TANKS. I am not topping them off as is traditionally done (since the beginning of Gas), to avoid condensation accumulation.

E-10 (actually all ethanol blended) gas does two things:

1.) Dissolves polyester resin used in our glass tanks, &
2.) Becomes unusable in a short period of time due to "phase-separation," where the ethanol chemically un-mixes itself from the gasoline. This leaves a layering of water, ethanol & gasoline who's octane rating is so low it won't burn (ethanol is an octane booster). This phase-separation reportedly begins in as little as two weeks.

So, even if you've changed your fuel tanks to some ethanol friendly material, you still can't "store" e-10.

I don't want to add draining 350 gallons of 'not-gas,' disposing of same & CLEANING my fuel tanks (which is required after phase-separation) to my spring chores.

Since nobody will let me sell my Labradors for medical research to pay for a diesel repower, I'm adding temporary polyethylene tanks for next season & avoiding my fiberglass built-ins for the time being. Any extended cruising I will use my main tanks & transfer what-ever is left into the poly-tanks ASAP.

 

[Beckytek]

Winterized my engines today and found it took 6 gals of the pink stuff to fill my raw water system. Since this is the first time I did these engines I was a little concerned. I was able to obtain a few hundred gallons of the non ethanol gas so I won't have to worry about phase separation and new tanks for another year.
Trojan, I was thinking about your thread about thermostat removal but I have fresh water cooling and my thermostat is in the permanent antifreeze section of the system. It wouldn't do any good for me to remove it to winterize. Sounds like good advice for a raw water system. Ron

 

[Maynard Rupp]

Yer right Maynard. When we winterize boats at the yard we circulate through the whole system via the pickup until it comes out rich. -40F. Either way is correct. Last year we were bustin' ice in the twin ports (Duluth) with the 2400HP SENECA and the air was so cold that the fog was frozen in suspension. If I recall the ambient was -42F.
In those conditions, we cant run sea water/ice through the engines; the strainers fill with ice and then yer froze in. NOT GOOD. Actually the sea strainers are closed and winterized by filling the valve casing with pumped in lard through a grease fitting. We fill the fore peak tank with water and recirc it. About 3000 gallons. The lake water keeps the skin nice and cool. BUT, Ya gotta drain it when yer done for the day!! The boiler in the engine room for heating keeps the space warm enough for a start up. 275 lbs of air to blow down and start the EMD. You've got one chance and then ya wait for air again. ws BRRRR!!

God man, I have spent lots of time ,(when I flew airplanes for a living), in Duluth. What a neat town, but those winters are beyond belief. No cars with auto transmissions as they won't work on those really cold days, running your car engine around the clock so you can get to work. Big end loaders and double bottom dump trucks working all night to move the snow and throw it in Lake Superior. I have never been so cold in my life. And people wonder why the whole nortern part of this country is re-locating to Florida.

 

[RyanB]

Winterized my engines today and found it took 6 gals of the pink stuff to fill my raw water system. Since this is the first time I did these engines I was a little concerned. I was able to obtain a few hundred gallons of the non ethanol gas so I won't have to worry about phase separation and new tanks for another year.
Trojan, I was thinking about your thread about thermostat removal but I have fresh water cooling and my thermostat is in the permanent antifreeze section of the system. It wouldn't do any good for me to remove it to winterize. Sounds like good advice for a raw water system. Ron

Resurrecting this 14 year old thread, as I came across this today when researching running antifreeze through my engines tomorrow.

I was told I have to pull the Thermostat, but the above makes perfect sense that in a FWC engine, the thermostat is in the antifreeze portion of the engine.

Is this indeed the case, I can just run the -100 AF through it?

 

[UNIQUE_NAME]

yes, on a fwc engine the thermostat is in the closed cooling loop. so you can just run the pink thru the raw water side.
that will go thru the oil cooler, tranny cooler, exchanger and out the back.

 

[RyanB]

Great, thanks!