Will Prestone Antifreeze Damage Impeller?

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Ducati

.
Nov 19, 2008
380
Boatless Boatless Annapolis
When I winterized the Volvo I ran Prestone antifreeze through the system.

Will it damage the impeller?

Thanks
 
Mar 26, 2011
3,841
Corsair F-24 MK I Deale, MD
NO. Engine coolants, such as Pretone, are tested...

... for compatibility with a wide range of elastomers. Considering the number of gaskets and o-rings in an engine, you can understand why.

I'm in the industry, run the tests, and am not guessing.
 
Feb 6, 1998
11,723
Canadian Sailcraft 36T Casco Bay, ME
Thinwater is right. I still remove them in the winter and put them in my "spares" bin and toss the previous years impeller. You'd be amazed at the number of one season old impellers I see with cracked vane roots or missing vanes altogether.
 
Mar 26, 2011
3,841
Corsair F-24 MK I Deale, MD
Thinwater is right. I still remove them in the winter and put them in my "spares" bin and toss the previous years impeller. You'd be amazed at the number of one season old impellers I see with cracked vane roots or missing vanes altogether.
True. And for those that haul every 2 years (my impeller is hear to replace in the water), replacement is must. They seldom make 4 seasons.
 
Dec 1, 1999
2,391
Hunter 28.5 Chesapeake Bay
While you never can go wrong replacing your raw water pump impeller annually, you can go broke using that philosophy replacing other boat parts that may not really need replacement. I used to change my Yanmar 2GM20F raw water pump impeller annually and so have a bin full of nearly new impellers that could have gone a lot longer in service. I now only open the pump and inspect the impeller annually and leave it in if it looks good. Impeller "life" can depend on a lot more than the passage of 365 days. To me, impeller life also depends on how many hours you use your engine, the condition of the inside housing of the pump and cam, and whether or not you've needed your engine to back off of a soft grounding. In those seasons in which I typically only use my engine for 50 hours or so, and know the inside of the pump is free of sand/grit/debris from sucking it up backing off a grouding in the Bay, I will continue use the same impeller for a couple more seasons. I believe a good quality impeller that has not been damaged by grit ought last at least 300 hours of engine use. This is based on a database of one, so certainly results vary. I also stopped taking the impeller out in winter as I thought the threat of the blades taking a "set" was minimal to non-existant in my case as I visit the boat about once a month over the winter and hand-turn the water pump to make sure the blades are rotated at regular intervals before the boat goes back into the drink.
 

higgs

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Aug 24, 2005
3,715
Nassau 34 Olcott, NY
I am with Warren. I inspect every year. If it looks good I use it again. Never lost a vane.
 
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