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Posts: 1000
| Hi Everyone,
Those of you that own Yamaha 4-strokes - how do you winterize? I have a 2011 250 (4.2L) and a 2011 9.9 kicker. All my previous experience was with a Honda 135 4-stroke, which was very easy. My research online makes the Yammi seem a bit more involved.
A couple questions:
Oil change - is it really worth it to pump out from the dip stick vs draining? Looks like it could be a mess, but the pump seems more suited for saltwater.
Fogging - is this necessary? My Honda didn't require this so long as I was running stabilizer. Yamaha is recommending getting a portable gas tank and using their fogging additive. This seems a bit ridiculous, but it's better to ask.
Anything special with the kickers?
I run Seafoam all season so I'm always stabilized.
Thanks! |
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Posts: 273
Location: US | I Have a 2017 200 yamaha. Pumping the oil out of the dipstick is nice. No mess, once its all out you have it in a container you can pour into a waste oil barrel etc. instead of sloshing around in a drain pan. I would have to take some covers off to access the drain plug on mine, so other than buying the vacuum pump sucking it out of the dipstick tube is much nicer imo. It does take some time to suck it out. Never timed it, would guess about 10 minutes.
Edited by anderj85 10/10/2019 4:01 PM
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Posts: 1000
| Thank you!
How about fogging? Do you bother with yours? |
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Posts: 199
| Who does fogging anymore, especially on a 4 stroke? |
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Posts: 273
Location: US | tolle141 - 10/10/2019 7:04 PM
Thank you!
How about fogging? Do you bother with yours?
I do. It's easy, so even if it's not needed it's not a big deal. Since I was buying something new under factory warranty, I figured i might as well follow their recommendations. |
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Location: 31 | I always use Yamaha Ring free, and then the Yamaha stabilizer in the last tank before winter in my Yamaha 300hp and 20hp kicker. My last last tank of gas is premium non-ethanol, but do not see the need to winterize otherwise.
I don't have a problem with running gas with ethanol during the season, and in many respects think it's actually better, but still a little leery of the ethanol for storage. I also like the idea that if the premium degrades, it will still have plenty of octane. |
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Posts: 3472
Location: Elk River, Minnesota | Hiya,
One nice thing about fogging is the oil will help keep things lubricated and coated in the combustion chamber, and it will work it's way into and around the piston rings. I know many do not fog anymore, but I do feel there is benefit. If for some reason a ring gets stuck due to carbon, gum, or plain metal on metal, that could be very detrimental to the engine.
Could be as simple as removing the plugs, spray in, and rotate the engine a couple of times to let everything get coated... Those with 2 stroke engines have some oil in there already, although quite diluted, so fogging gives the extra coating. An etec will self store by injecting more oil into the chamber, thus coating it....
As for ethanol over winter, it will degrade just like premium will if not stabilized, and most stabilizers will have a certain amount of alcohol in them to bond with any potential water contaminants from condensation. And...you can always purchase 92 octane E10 as well, having a higher rating than premium non-ehtanol.
I truly do not see how condensation can form on the inside of the tank without external introduction as it is below deck usually and not really open to the air. Warm air has a very hard time traveling down a vent tube toward a colder environment, and even in the colder environment, the surrounding air will not have anywhere near the humidity level it can have in the summer months.
Fog the engine, fill and stabilize the tank with your fuel of choice, park it, and plan next year's trips!!
Steve
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Posts: 612
| When unused for a length of time the 4 stroke still requires fogging. Bit of a gamble with the carburetor, jets, plugs etc if Y don't. When considered it's a pretty small investment compared to the alternatives. |
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Location: 31 | Steve, I like your idea of just spraying the cylinders rather than fogging. Do you agree with the content of this post I found?
***4 Strokes really don't need to be "fogged". The true definition of fogging is spraying storage oil into the intake while the engine is running to coat all the moving parts with oil. A 2 stroke requires it because by nature, it is the only way to get oil to all the parts, both on the top and bottom end, (crankshaft, bearings, etc). Just spraying oil into the cylinders is not fogging.
4 strokes do not need fogging because pretty much all the moving parts are already coated with crankcase oil. Fogging a 4 stroke does not even reach or have any effect on 99% of the moving parts in a 4 stroke. All it does is coat the intake passages (which may even be a bad idea for an EFI motor) and get a bit of oil into the combustion chambers and valves. You can do that by pulling the plugs and spraying oil into cylinders.***
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Posts: 3472
Location: Elk River, Minnesota | Hiya!!
I would agree overall.
With a 2 stroke, lubrication is carried by fuel, so fogging through the intake coats all of the internal parts as it passes through the crank case, then on to the cylinder.
4 stroke engines are systems that essentially isolate the crank case from the cylinder itself, so the internal parts of the crankcase are always lubricated with oil.
Fogging will coat the moving parts such as the valve train, and will work it's way down around the piston rings as well. Depending on the position of the intake and exhaust valves, spraying oil into the cylinder through the plug hole can do a fairly decent job of this as well. Going through intake is probably a bit more thorough overall, though.
Years ago, we would use 2 tbsp of 2 stroke oil and put it down each cylinder, then slowly crank the engine over to disperse the oil as best as possible. It did an adequate job, but probably was not as good as using fogging oil through the intake.
Steve |
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Posts: 216
| Would you fog your car or truck if you stored it over the winter?
Edited by Abu7000 10/31/2019 8:21 PM
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Posts: 3472
Location: Elk River, Minnesota | Yes... |
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Location: 31 | VMS - 11/1/2019 7:16 AM
Yes...
With the recent 7" snow and now salt on the roads here I'm putting the cover on my high-performance two-seater as soon as I can get to the gas station for a fill up and gas treatment. There's no way I'm pulling the plugs, and I’m 100% leery of fogging it. I'll just put it on the trickle charger and start it up once or twice this winter like I’ve been doing.
I quit fogging my boat a few years ago but have been doing the same thing with its motors because it's simply less hassle. I'm still planning on using my boat, if not, then I'll start them up before tucking them in for the winter, and then again in February early March depending on weather.
Edited by Jerry Newman 11/2/2019 11:15 AM
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Posts: 8721
| VMS - 11/1/2019 7:16 AM
Yes...
I store my car from November - April every year. I unhook the battery, and charge it a couple times over the winter. Most years I'll run it for a few minutes every so often, but the last few winters that's been maybe once or twice. All I do as far as prep is a full tank of premium and a bottle of Stabil. It's been 15 years, and it starts right up every spring, and runs like it did 6 months ago.
My father stores his car from Sept - May, and does nothing except unhooking the battery. No stabilizer, whatever gas was left in the tank...
Neither of us have had a problem.
As far as the boat? Marine Sea Foam and fresh gas in the fall. I leave the "ears" on connected to a hose that's coiled up under the boat. All I have to do is hook up the hose, turn on the water, start her up and let her run for a bit. I keep a 5 gallon bucket aligned with the stream from the pee hole, and my garage is sloped to a floor drain, so running the motor for 10 min is literally a 12 min project with no water to clean up. So far so good...
IMO, the best thing you can do is get a heater for your garage, with a thermostat you can set. I keep mine at 38 degrees. Nothing freezes, nothing breaks, leather seats don't split, there's no issue with wild swings in temperature, condensation, etc. Easy Peasy... |
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Location: Eastern Ontario | I see no mention of changing the lower unit oil to me it's the most important part. |
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Posts: 859
Location: MN | I have a 4 stroke Yamaha. I don’t fog I think it’s a 2 stroke hold over. Just my opinion. I do run the ring free and the Yamaha stabilization products year round. Regarding oil iv done the dip stick pump method works great. I have also done the oil drain plug method. You can get a small house with a threaded adapter for the rear oil plug. You keep the engine cold tilt it up pull the plug add the house/adapter and tilt the motor down draining the oil. Then your filter comes off when the oils out and it’s so no mess! As mentioned Lowe unit is important as are the water fuel separator and fuel filter. |
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Location: Eastern Ontario | I think the oil should be drained warm and I think draining is more complete than pumping through the dipstick. If I come due for a change mid season while boat is at the marina I use a pump but always do a change at end of season regardless of hours and drain the oil and change the filter.
Edited by horsehunter 11/3/2019 11:30 AM
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Location: 31 | I tend to agree that fogging a 4 stroke is more of a two-stroke holdover deal, although I liked Steve's idea of shooting a little fogging oil in the cylinders too.
However, IMHO an important part of the equation is how long is the storage going to be as well. One of the master Tech Yamaha recommendations I ran across was, “if you're not going to use your boat for a couple of months you should winterize”. I seized upon this, and that's why I simply run the motors warm with fresh treated fuel a couple times during the winter. I also strongly believe in and use the Yamaha Ring Free additive year-round, as well as all regular maintenance as if I lived in CA.
Years ago when I had two-strokes I did the gas treatment, fogging, and changed the lower unit oil before storage every year. That was actually fairly easy and inexpensive unlike Yamaha's recommendation before storage to change the filters, oils, treat the gas, and run the boat with their recommended fogging oil from a 2 gallon can… don't forget to wax your stainless steel prop too. 
Although I might get blasted for this, I have not been changing any oil at the end of the season either, just every 100 hours as recommended. What changed my thinking was the hour meter I installed on my new boats kicker, it was actually kind of shocking to discover how many kicker oil changes I missed with previous boats. Anyway, I just changed the oil in both motors less than 30 hours ago and everything was perfect then, so can't logically justify such redundancy.
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Location: Eastern Ontario | I change every hundred hours which on the 20 hp kicker is only about 10 days trolling and only a liter of oil. Where i keep my boat in relation to where i troll it would be unusual to get 100 hours on the main motor so I do oil and filter on both motors on layup. If the kicker came due with only a day or so of fishing left I would probably wait.
Edited by horsehunter 11/4/2019 8:48 AM
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Posts: 1000
| horsehunter - 11/3/2019 6:32 AM
I see no mention of changing the lower unit oil to me it's the most important part.
Agreed. This is pretty straightforward though so I didn't feel a need to ask. My main focus was on Yamaha's recommendation of pumping via dipstick as the drain plug is pretty inconvenient to access/drain without making a mess.
As for fogging, I never did this with my Honda and I don't think the manual recommended it. Yamaha on the other hand does, but suggests getting a separate gas tank and using their special gas additive. That felt like a bit of a money grab given my experience with Honda. |
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Location: 31 | It's interesting that Honda does not recommend the crankcase oil be changed for storage like Yamaha, kind of reaffirms the thinking on the top end of a four stroke for me.
I agree with your recommendation on the lower unit change before winter as a general guideline, but then again everyone's situation and risk tolerance is a little different. Take for instance esoxaddict storing his boat in a heated garage, obviously that solves the potential freezing problem.
IMHO, motors are built with much tighter tolerances these days, as well as my thinking that I would have probably noticed something while doing visual inspections, or something during the last service. I only have about 30 hours on my motors since the last oil change, and although there is a slight risk something weird could have happened, this also hold true for the middle of the summer. Anyway, I'm willing to take that chance because I feel the risk water infiltrated is so slight.
Edited by Jerry Newman 11/25/2019 12:45 PM
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Location: 31 | My thinking is that it's really not that important to get every last drop of old oil, and it's a pain to take everything apart for an oil change on the big motor, (that's what I've done so far). I'll be trying the oil extraction pump next service.
Edited by Jerry Newman 11/25/2019 12:42 PM
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Posts: 3472
Location: Elk River, Minnesota | Hiya,
The only thing I can think of for replacing the oil at season's end is to ensure there is no water that somehow had gotten into the crankcase, so I would surmise this is more for legal purposes. I could see someone comes back after swamping their motor somehow, water gets into the crankcase somehow, they don't change their oil, and the water in there cracks the crankcase....
I know that there are some rigs out there where the location of the crank case puts part of it below the waterline and with following seas, can have a wave come up higher yet... I would tend to think it is more of a liability statement...
Lower unit definitely at end of season...
Steve |
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