Axis Wakeboard Boat Forum

I always have used a flush pro with the 5 gallon jug attachment.

Before this boat I popped the thermostat and filled it up after drawing all the water out.


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I just installed a indmar strainer pro. with a hose hook up. same thing as perko really but w a strainer. I also have a valve i can shut at the water intake before the strainer. Perko has a check valve i think.

these things are awesome was able to run the boat for 15 minutes to heat the oil worked great. Also have a 5 gallon jug from west marine with a hose attachment to have the strainer pro suck in the anti freeze.

It's possible to add anti-freeze thru the fak-a-lake but you need to have a good seal on the plunger. The way I used to do it ( before I stopped adding anit-freeze) was to hook a small section of garden hose to the plunger. I had about 10 feet of old hose that I cut off and used a funnel to pour in the antifreeze. It goes quick so I had all the caps off and ready to go. I know there are better/fancier ways to make the connections but it has to be gravity fed to work

I did something similar, but bought a garden hose attachment from the hardware store for a couple bucks. Drilled a hole and installed it in the bottom of a bucket. This way I could pour 4 bottles of antifreeze in the bucket. It worked perfectly.

I've been working on winterizing my 2016 A20 with the base 5.7. The boat came with a manual that outlines each of the places to drain.

Here's what I did:

Remove knock sensor wires (1 each side). 13mm wrench to remove outer part of knock sensor. Someone previously in this thread said they just removed the small bolt. That won't work because the small bolt doesn't thread into water so when it's removed, nothing drains. I removed the small one plus the knock sensor to make it easier to get to the big bolt. 1" wrench (I used a crescent wrench; will buy a 1" wrench for spring). Bunch of water came out.

14mm wrench to remove the exhaust manifold plugs. Bunch of water came out.

18mm wrench to remove the plugs on the exhaust system closer to the front of the engine (front in this case means towards the bow). Is it a cat? I dunno. 2 of them. Bunch of water came out.

8mm nut driver or wrench to remove hose clamps for the circulation pump outlet hose. The correct hose to remove is facing down and to the left/port. Not too much water came out.

8mm nut driver or wrench to remove hose clamps for heater (locations in the book). This was the largest PITA. I had a helluva time removing one of the heater hoses. Once they were removed I blew from one side and water came out the other. I can still hear water gurgling around in there so hopefully it's not enough to cause damage. I don't know what else I could do to get the rest out. It will be in an insulated garage over the winter and I can put a small space heater in the garage to keep it above freezing.

More hose clamps at the transmission cooler. The transmission cooler is a cylinder looking thing along the right/starboard side of the engine in the bilge. There's a water line coming from the v-drive towards the back of the boat and inline with this is the transmission cooler. The manual says to remove the inlet side. On that side there is about 4 inches of hose and it's rock hard; I didn't even bother trying to remove it. Instead I removed the outlet (towards rear of boat) hose. A bunch of water came out. Then I used my shop vac to suck any remaining water out.

Then on the bottom front of the v-drive there's another brass plug. To get to it you need to slide the rear seat forward then lift the fiberglass step/cover to get to the v-drive. Bottom front is a large plug. You need a 1/2" socket wrench plus a short extension to get to it. Not a 1/2" socket; a 1/2" socket wrench. It's square drive so you just put the extension directly into the plug.

The manual says I should remove the impeller. Looks like only 4 bolts. Didn't get to it, will do it tomorrow. It says to store it out of the boat so it stays in good shape.

I used my wet/dry shop vac to vacuum all the water out of the bilge. Neither drain plug is at the lowest part of the boat so I never get any water out of the drain plugs.

I put the plugs and knock sensors in a zip-loc and will put everything back in spring.

I would like to run antifreeze through everything but as mentioned in other threads the strainer on the bottom of the boat is positioned directly onto one of the bunks so it's impossible to get a fake-a-lake on there. My dealer promised to fix this and other issues when the season was over but we're now almost in November and they still refuse to do any work. Their last excuse was that they wanted to get through the "winterization rush" before they took on any warranty work. Now I can't properly winterize my boat because of this. They suck.

So on my TODO list is to remove the impeller, remove the batteries and put them on battery tenders, and then cover it. I'll put a dry-z-air under the cover and will also run a dehumidifier in the garage so I don't have to worry about moisture. I think I'm going to put the entire trailer up on jack stands to get the tires off the floor. Since we only have 3 months of wakeboarding around here it will sit in the garage for 9 months. I think keeping it up off the floor will help the tires avoid flat spots.

I guess if my crappy dealer ever actually does the work I'll button everything back up and suck in some antifreeze/coolant.

Gonna tackle this in the next couple of weeks. Just got off the phone with the dealer...they wanted $699 to winterize...guess I'm learning myself.

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So glad I live in San Diego and can boat all year and not worry about this. Great posts though guys.


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I am not sure where the ignition coil is, can you shed some light on this? also, my transmission bolts have very little clearance between the transmission and the gas tank and if I remove them I am afraid I may be able to get them back in, how critical are these for winterizing? Thanks for the write up, it was very helpful as this is my first time winterizing my self.