I am no rookie at winterizing a boat having done it for myself and others close to 200 times. Had Buddy over helping put up the boat garage and he went out boating for the rest of the afternoon. We met him at the ramp around sundown with intentions of winterizing his boat. Pulled the block plug on the starboard side and no water, OK give hand over the pick tool to clear the mud. Tom (aka BudMan who was also present) poked around to no avail. Still no water.

Put plugs back in and ran it backed into the ramp to try to clear it. Remove just the Starboard block plug and still no water coming out. We are thinking the next step is to remove the fitting that the blue drain plug screw into and trying to get a better bite.

Anyone have any unique ideas to clear the mud from the block. We are suspecting that it has probably been in there for some time. The thought of an air compressor came to mind. Any thoughts on how to get the sediment out?

Open to ideas, no good deed goes un-punished..

SBC Alpha in this case, good flow from all othe drain plugs.

I would be more apt to plumb in some water into the block drain and regulate the pressure. Try to stir things up, if you know what I mean.
I would not put 90 psig compressed air on my block.
Let's face it, most of us are trying to control our water pressure around 22-25 psig.
You could do more harm than good by over pressurizing the waterside of your engine regardless of whether it's air or water.

Rlw has a good idea,backflush some water at a safe pressure thru the block drain holes to loosen up the sediment,you'll have to make some temporary adapters but it could work out,Smitty

combination of mud rust and heat = cement, or it seemed that way for me. I had the same problem last year and almost resorted to a drill. used different sized tiny screw drivers and kept twisting and pushing until it broke thru. good luck!

If you have decent access to freeze plugs you can pop one or two of them out and flush out the sand and mud from there. While prodding around the drain and freexe plug holes.

It all depends on what type of access you have to the side of the engine.

keep trying with bent pick or small screwdriver it is probably rust ( this is a typical situation) don't panic

Keep trying with sharp instruments.
90+ psi in the block could blow a head gasket or some other seal.
Second thought it would probably blow the core (freeze) plugs before anything else happened.

The small amount that was accessible with the pick tool was a scale and crushed shale. Probably a rust, sand, scale cocktail in there. I think our plan will be to adapt a fitting to the drain with a hose. Fill the hose with a column of water and push it with a regulated air supply at 25 psi. If that does not work I guess the casting plugs are coming out.

Whenever I have had mud in a block before it seemed that once you got a small trickle to come out it self cleaned and ran clear right away. This is his first boat and it was used so we don't know how it had been winterized in the past. Perhaps it has been full of rust for some time. It was like hitting a solid object once the plug was out.

This thread is confirming my need for a sea strainer. Soon as a read "shale", that was the clincher.
Sounds like you have the right approach and suggestions.
Good Luck!
Russ

Were you trying to poke through it with the motor running on the hose? Thats what I ended up having to do to get it to break free, just plugged the hole as soon as it started pumping clear water.