Winterized the Panda 4200 Generator today as well as the Freezer Plates. It was a much easier job than I thought and something any DIYer can do. We took pictures and will be posting them online soon. Here's what we did.
1). Warmed up generator by running for 10-20 mins.
2). Drained the oil using the oil drain tube and refilled with 10W30.
3). Changed the racor filter R11T. Took a little work to get unscrewed. We cleaned it out before installing the new filter.
4). In the Panda manual on page 16, there are directions for De-aerating the fuel system. Fairly easy, just make sure power switch is off, disconnect clamp no 5 of the DC terminal and run the fuel pump by turning on the power button for at least 5 mins. That should get the air out.
After we restarted the engine and it ran fine, we turned out attention to the water intake. Cleaned the strainer first.
5) Then we disconnected the hose from the thru hull fitting and placed in a bucket of water to flush with fresh water. Turned on generator and ran thru 2 5 gallon + buckets of water or more. Shut down generator and put the hose in pink antifreeze and ran generator till pink stuff was blowing out exhaust.
Hooked up the hose again and made sure pink stuff was in the strainer. Done!
We still need to drain the exhaust - there is a plug we need to unscrew to do that and also spray the engine with a Protectant. Also need to check the fresh water coolant with a Antifreeze tester to make sure it is good to -20. We probably should have done this first but we were pressed for time today in order to get our boat hauled for Hurricane Sandy.
Apparently you can only use a antifreeze that contains Ethylene Glycol. The antifreeze needs to be suitable for aluminum. At -20, the water antifreeze mixture is 70:30. The recommend a product called Glysantin Protect Plus/G 48.
That should do it, and you leave the suitcase partially open to allow moisture to escape.
If there is anything we missed, I would greatly appreciate letting me know. Again, we will post pics and we also plan on installing a flush valve between the water intake and strainer to allow for easy flushing after use.
