This has been keeping me up at night, so I'm hoping somebody here can
shed some light:

I removed the drain plugs from both exhaust manifolds & from each side
of the block. Then, I removed all six hoses from the thermostat housing
& flushed each with freshwater. When I tried to flush the large hose on
the port side (looks like it goes into the water pump), it filled up &
nothing came out of any of the drain plugs in the engine. So, I'm
assuming that one leads to the water intake in the outdrive, but
because the boat is in the water, I couldn't see anything coming out.

I replaced all the drain plugs & filled everything with antifreeze
(removed the thermostat housing too, and added some directly to the
block, just for good measure), but I'm a little concerned about that
port-side hose. I pumped all the water out of there I could, and
refilled with antifreeze, but I'm worried there's water trapped
downstream of that hose that might cause problems.

Any input or advice?

--
kevin c smith
http://centricle.com