The catch? The “off-season” can be susceptible to significant swings in temperature. Winterize early and you may miss out on beautiful weather and uncrowded waterways. Delay or procrastinate and an unexpected freeze could do significant damage to your engine.
Volvo Penta’s Easy Drain system eliminates the worry — and opens up the possibilities — by giving owners a simple and quick way to prep for winter, while still being ready to quickly take advantage of those beautiful spring and fall days.
First Line Of Defense
The award-winning Easy Drain system starts with another trademark Volvo Penta feature designed to simplify boating — closed-loop cooling. In the old days, the engine was very susceptible to freeze damage. That is why the Volvo Penta Easy Drain system for gasoline engines starts by protecting the engine blocks and all internals with glycol.
Just like in your car, that glycol solution is contained and circulated within a closed loop, maintaining both a safe operating temperature as well as preventing freeze damage by raising both the freezing and boiling points of the engine’s coolant. Closed-loop cooling also avoids potential contaminants like salt, sand and debris that can compromise open-loop cooling designs and, ultimately, shorten the life of your engine.
Freeze Damage
Still, a limited amount of outside water is necessary to essentially “cool the coolant.” This raw water, circulated within dedicated cooling lines as it makes its way to and from a heat exchanger, remains in these passages after use.
If a boat is not properly winterized as temperatures dip below freezing, that remaining water can solidify and expand by up to 10%, damaging the parts containing the liquid. While closed-loop cooling limits the amount of raw water that is used to cool the engine during operation, these raw-water cooling lines, along with the heat exchanger and seawater pump, need to be drained.
Typically, this happens during winterization … and effectively ends the boating season.
An Easy-er Way
Enter the Easy Drain System. A single knob, easily identifiable by its bright blue color, releases water trapped in the hoses and heat exchanger when depressed and routes it to a central manifold, where it drains to the bilge and can be easily pumped overboard. Raising the knob closes the system once again. A locking pin ensures the raw-water cooling system can’t be accidentally drained.
The Easy Drain has several drain spouts so that you can be sure water is draining out of all locations. In contrast, if a system only had one outlet you would not know if a line that feeds into the drain was clogged. With Easy Drain you can visually see that each area of the engine is draining.
Extend Your Season
Best of all, an owner can activate the Easy Drain whether the boat is on the trailer or, thanks to its anti-siphon vent, still in the water. Besides simplifying the winterization process, this also makes sure the boat can be quickly put back into use.
With Easy Drain, Volvo Penta owners get the best of both worlds — peace of mind that their engine is prepped to avoid freeze damage, along with the knowledge that they can enjoy their boat should nice weather beckon. The end result and Easy Drain’s best advantage is little to no boating off-season at all.
