Do I Freeze My Spark?

[YooperProstar]

First time owner of a PWC. We have a Sea Doo Spark Trixx. Our cabin is in western WI and I pulled our boat and out it in the garage about 2 weeks ago before I left on a business trip. I knew it had a closed loop cooling system so figured any small details I could handle when I got back to the cabin tonight. Well it got really cold here the last couple of nights and while I was on trip noticed guys are flushing antifreeze through the boat. Dammit. Never thought it would get this cold this one of year.

Anyways so I get to the garage and run the boat for a minute and shut it down. I do this with breaks in between to not ruin anything but warm up the engine and exhaust. I notice a small amount water trickle out. Then I run to hardware store to get a funnel and hose and funnel 2 gallons of Rv antifeeze though the flush port. I gravity fed it but it made it through and I think.

Here is my question, how much water stays in the boat when you pull it out of the water? Do you think I ruined anything during the hard freeze? If the rv made it through the boats exhaust am I in the clear? I feel like an idiot.

After running the 2 gallons I didn't notice any exhaust fumes, smoke, or fluid in the hull. I also realized (mistake) I ran most of the antifreeze through the system gravity fed with the engine not running. The engine ran fine but wondering if this is a another issue.

 

[Sea Dood]

You are probably just fine. Water is used to keep the exhaust cool, there is a line leading up from pump to the exhaust manifold, then the water flows into the waterbox and out. There is always water in the waterbox, no way to get it all out. The big risk you have is water freezing in the manifold passages, a secondary concern is water freezing in the waterbox and either splitting it or damaging the baffles. The standard routine is to pump RV antifreeze thru the flush port to force the water out of the exhaust and dilute the water in the waterbox. It is good practice to tip front of the ski up, the start and blip the throttle a few times to blow as much liquid remaining out of the waterbox as you can.

Whenever you push antifreeze through the flush post, you should run the engine at idle. 2 gallons is a lot, you really only need about a half gallon.

Once you are all done, it is good practice to blow compressed air into the flush port, especially if you live in a god-foresaken northern place like Minnesota!. RV antifreeze says on the bottle it "protects to -50" or some nonsense like that, but that is not true, it freezes into slush at like 10 degrees. So it is good to blow air through the system to get the RV antifreeze out of the exhaust passages. It won't hurt to have slushies in the waterbox, LOL.

Next spring, just run your ski and watch it on the first run, if you split the manifold or waterbox you will know right away.