Winterizing the Malibu

[oldjeep]

Decided to winterize my FIL's Malibu for him this year and save him the pain and expense of bringing it in. Couple thoughts on the design of the boat and the Black Scorpion in it.

1) No drain line on the pan? Seriously? On a boat like that, the extra $20 for the remote drain was too much for the factory? I'll be putting one on next year when I winterize it. That drain plug is a huge pain to get at and there is no way I'm sucking oil out of anything.

2) Why is the water separating fuel filter mounted so that it is half way over the carpet?

3) Why would you hose clamp the servo for the perfect pass to the side of a coolant hose?

4) How about designing the heater system so that it drains rather than having to blow it out with a compressor

 

Aside from that it wasn't too bad, just took 5 times longer than my boat.

[mlange]

I had one in my RLXi for 5-6 years. It's not bad. The drain system on the Black Scorpion is much nicer than on the Monsoon or L96. If you don't want to dump coolant into the block or manifolds you don't even need to take off any hoses.

 

I'm with you on the oil drain hose. I bought the special pump that screws onto the dip stick, but I never got out as much oil as I should have.

 

I always just cut a milk jug and put it under the spin on fuel filter.

 

The best place I found for my PP servo motor was also on the coolant hose. I played around with a couple of places, but the throttle didn't move as cleanly when it was elsewhere. Sounds like I'm not the only one.

 

The only thing I didn't like about it was that you had to take the whole pump off to swap out the impeller. On the flip side that pump pushes a lot more water through the engine than the crappy one on Monsoon and L96. I'm constantly getting air bubbles with the L96.

 

The other plus is that engine is pretty damn good on gas.

 

Mike

 

 

[Waternut]

1 and 2 I agree with. Although I've seen 1 in far too many boats. Thankfully not mine though. I don't understand your problem with 3 and 4. Those are both pretty standard. Pretty sure PP even recommends mounting to a cooling hose. Where else would you mount it? As for the heater, takes less than a minute to unhook the hose and blow the water out of the system with your mouth.

[oldjeep]

Just seems odd to mount anything mechanical to a hose. Seems like they would have built a bracket that was anchored to the engine.

 

As for the heater, it is not that it is that difficult - just odd that something that needs to be drained would be installed in such a way that it will not drain.

 

As for the impeller - I guess I didn't think changing that was so bad, but I'm used to having to pull the lower unit off my boat to change mine so just pulling the pump seemed like an improvement.

[MISkier]

When I installed the heater in my Malibu, I purchased the extended brackets and pointed the vent outlets up. That put the water inlet/outlet pointing down and allows gravity to perform the draining. You still want to purge them with a compressor (very low psi) or manually, but the bulk of the water should drain into the bilge when hose is disconnected from the engine.

[mlange]

Out of curiosity where does your buddy live and what year/color is his boat?

 

There are very few RLXi's out there w/ the Black Scorpion. I wonder if this is my old boat.

[oldjeep]

It is my father in laws boat, keeps it on Prior Lake. I think it is a 2003 that he has had for 8 years - color is yellow and white.

[mlange]

Got it. Obviously different boat then.

[oldjeep]

One of these will be on order and stuck in the boat for next years winterizing.

http://www.overtons.com/modperl/product/details.cgi?pdesc=Oil-Drain-Kit-12mm-x-1-75-Thread-Size&i=30334&str=30334&merchID=4005

 

 

So only one more year of the turkey pan oil redirector

[SoonerBred01]

I've always had good luck with the dipstick tube oil siphons. Less mess than draining into the bilge. I always pull the drain plug afterwards and let the last little bit drain into a solo cup, but it's never more than a few oz's.

[oldjeep]

I only sort of drained it into the bilge. I used a foil roaster pan, smashed to fit under the motor and redirected the oil out the drain hole under the motor and into a drain pan. I set up a dam with a wet rag to make sure no oil went forward. So almost no oil actually touched the boat.

 

The drain plug in this particular boat/engine is a real pain to get to and there is about 1.5" clearance under the pan, so no cup could be used.

[boarditup]

I actually hook up the siphon to the drain tube. I get out virtually all the oil out of the engine that way. It is a lot quicker than waiting for the oil to drain out of the small tube.

[Joeprunc]

@boarditup, that's what I do, but oldjeep's RLXi doesn't have a drain tube.

 

@oldjeep, did you touch your trans fluid? The only way I found to drain mine is with a suction device.

 

X2 on a cut off milk carton for the fuel separator.

 

I just installed PP last year and it was in their directions to install on the hose.

[oldjeep]

I didn't do his trans fluid this time. His receipts indicated that they had only been doing it every 2 years and this was the off year.

 

I used a folgers can for the fuel separator, just thought it was funny that they would install it over carpet.