Merc 496 Mag Water Leak - Help
 

I have a 496 Mag closed cooling engine and when I winterized it, I used the air pump that it comes with. I pumped and water came out. Now as the temps have gotten warmer, I noticed water coming out my boats drain plug.

On the port side of the engine, behind the pulley there is a blue drain plug and right below it is a nipple or such that appears where the water is leaking from. I put the air pump on again and pumped and I can see water coming out from this spot. Is this normal? When this engine is pressurized, where does the water normally drain out from?

Is it correct that for these motors, you just pressurize them and that's should do it?

Thanks in advance for your help, I'm pretty ticked if I have freeze damage! No antifreeze is present anywhere.

Yes, the small pump isnt really adequate. Go buy a 12V cigarette lighter tire pump and put it in your boat. Run the pump till water stops coming out....

Well, being worried, I fired up the motor on the hose to see if there were any cracks/leaks. Success, dry! Thank goodness! I was worried that I should have pinked the motor. Just not sure why when the weather warmed up, I saw some dripping out of the transom drain hole. I did pink the fresh water system and kept the two faucets open. I'll have to test that next.

The system is set up to stay pressurized just in case there is areas where water gets stuck and avoids being pushed out by the air immediately it eventually will drain. It's possible that a small amount of water did get trapped and froze but when it thawed it then got pushed out by the air pressure. Most if not all on here will say to run antifreeze through it when winterizing just like a non closed cooling motor for cheap insurance. I however have only used the air and never had a problem, lucky I guess.

I drain mine and put pink stuff in in for a little insurance. Are the O-rings good on your blue plugs?