Odalisque - October 18, 2004 Log

Log 2004 – October 18th

Monday October 18, 2004 – “Winterizing Begins”

Since I was the only unemployed partner in this boat, most of the work would fall on me. Odalisque is also conveniently located near my mother’s house. I visited her and her dog actually played with me on her bed, biting my knuckles (gently nibbling really). There is a first time for everything. But there was work to be done and the weather was nice today with rain forecast for the next couple of days. So off came the dodger, which I worried would catch wind on the hard.

The engine really needed some TLC as we had had salt water in the oil from a stuffing box flood. I started with the raw water cooling system first. The previous owner had installed a “T” fitting in the hose so fresh water could be fed into it from a deck fitting. I had tried this the previous fall and spring but I now know I had done it wrong. I filled the intake tube with fresh water after closing the intake through hull valve and started the engine. A few gulps of water came out, presumably salt water from the last time it was used, but the fresh water was not feeding through. I tried to remember what the previous owner had said about the “T” fitting and I thought he said not to use a hose with the valve all the way open or our hoses would burst or leak from the water pressure. I was using a 5 gallon bucket filled with fresh water and some tubing to siphon the water from the bucket to the intake fitting. I ended up unscrewing the fresh water intake sleeve on the “T” fitting to investigate if it was clogged. I found a spring-loaded valve inside that blocked my low pressure water feed so I removed the spring and the plug. I restarted my siphon and started the motor and the siphon was sucking fresh water into the engine. The water coming out of the exhaust was a bit dark and murky so I ran another 5 - 7 gallons through it before running a gallon of anti freeze in. I gather that the previous owner must have said to use a hose but not open to full pressure. I know that our water impeller pump had been compromised at best the last time I tried to do this so it was good to run nearly 14 gallons of water through. Now for the oil and fogging.

I had run the engine for nearly 20 minutes while flushing the cooling system so the oil was warm and ready to get sucked out. The pump extracted a fairly dark colored oil which alarmed me a bit as the oil was pretty fresh after 4 flushes. It was also SAE 30 and was fairly brown when it went in. Twenty minutes later there were bubbles coming up the tube from the oil pan. Don Moyer had suggested putting 2 quarts of Mystery oil in the oil pan over the winter and squirting Mystery oil into the pistons and running the engine for a few minutes to spread the mixture around so this is what I did after I set up the cooling system with some more anti freeze.

Moyer’s newsletter has an Atomic 4 winterizing list and we still have some steps to do. The water pump must be drained so that the pump’s impeller rubber arms do not get destroyed by ice. We need to refer to this checklist as we try to follow the best advice we can find.

— Caleb Davison