I brought my 400ss to Florida for the winter. What should I be doing after each day I run it down there in the salt water? Is there anything to be flushed? I have twin 496 mercs.

496's are closed cooling..... if your on a lift or trailer I would still flush the drives,heat exchangers and exhaust ......

The boat is staying in the water. I had it properly bottom painted and the drives as well. Is the a hook up to flush the things you mentioned?
Thanks

Not sure on the 496's .... there would have to be a hose fitting in the engine room ....maybe someone familiar with the 496's will chime in ...

You definitely need to be flushing the motors out after each use!!!!!

As mentioned, look for a garden hose fitting in the engine compartment; something that looks like this:
[ATTACH=CONFIG]548347[/ATTACH]

Do you have sea-strainers in the boat?
Are there ball valves do you can switch off the water supply coming from the drives?

This would be the ideal way to flush the boat; to turn off the salt water supply to the motors, and only flush with hose water. Leave the valves closed until you go back to take out the boat. But do NOT forget to open them again. Put a reminder like this on your keychains before you start the motors:


IF you do not know where these things are, I strongly advise consulting a local marine mechanic to walk you through this process. You cannot skimp or skip this, or you will pay dearly.

Not sure on a in the water. 496 or 525 has exchangers with fresh water cooling. Most in the water marine engines I have had apart the bulk of the corrosion is at or above the sitting waterline. My D-6 diesels i do not have a fresh flush unless I pull the boat. Then I just use muffs. Make sure you have changed from mags to Zincs for salt. Make sure your galvanic isolater (shore power) and mercathodes are working. Other than that have fun

The flush outs talked about above were options on a Formula SS 496HO boat. On mine, Formula put the hose end connectors in the glove box, and you use those to hook the hose to the flush out plumbing. I can't remember a lot of details about it because the boat was in fresh water so I never used them. I just remember it was easy to spot where the hose connects.

If you dont have, get the owners manual for the engines, they should give you details on the flushing procedure.

If you don't have the flush fittings on it have them put on. After every time you use your boat flush it with Salt-A-Way. You can get it at West Marine.