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Posts: 214
Location: Central Iowa | Being my first season as a boat owner, winterizing my boat and motor is new to me. What are the procedures that are a must and what are some do's, dont's, tips, and tricks of the trade? |
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Location: Minneapolis, MN | Since you are new, I would suggest talking to your local service/dealer and consulting your motor manual. You will get a lot of opinions here. Here's a couple items to put on your list. Depending on the type of motor, you will have to fog or oil the cylinders. Change the lube in your lower unit, which is a DIY project if you would like to do it. Remove the prop, check for any fishing line around the shaft, lube the shaft and check for any wobble or play in your prop shaft. Also greese the balls on the tips of your trim pistons. If you have greased bearings on your trailer, this is a good time to have them inspected and replaced as needed. Check the air pressure in your trailer tires and spare before storage. Put dryer sheets in all your compartments and stuff a sheet or two in the holes for wire access, etc. to keep any rodents out. Check the water level in your batteries and add only distilled water as needed. Give them a full charge and maintain it if you can while in storage. |
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Posts: 65
Location: Springfield, IL and Vermilion Bay, ON | When winterizing, I have tried every year to run the motors for a while with new, stabilized gas. This places stabilized gas in the motor. Then fog the cylinders until the engine dies. I also remove the spark plugs and spray into the cylinders directly. But a friend that runs a commercial camp simply runs the motors out of gas, then puts them away for the winter. When I drain the lower units, I allow them to drain for a day or two, if possible, then refill them for winter storage. My friend drains them out and leaves them empty for the winter, saying there is less risk of freezing and cracking the lower unit. His thought is that you can't guarantee that you got all the moisture out of the chamber. I would agree that even a thimble full of water could do damage. I have always though that you could tell immediately on draining whether or not you had any moisture in the chamber by the appearance of the draining oil. Foggy or frothy, you have an issue. Any thoughts on these two methods? Am I being too AROC?
Thanks for all replies and comments. |
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Location: Athens, Ohio | I'd think that if you leave the lower unit empty of oil, you invite corrosion from moisture in the air. I fill mine back up with clean oil, and when you fill from bottom to top, you should overfill a thimble-full to flush out any residual water.
Crackpot, you may do better searching the archives on this topic, you'll find a lot of really good, helpful info on previous threads. m
Edited by mikie 10/10/2006 12:52 PM
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