Quote:
Originally Posted by Poor Richard
If you're reasonably mechanical, the job is very easy to perform.
When I was learning about boat winterization, everything I read made it sound like voodoo magic. Turns out it isn't.
Fog engine, drain water and pour in propylene glycol. Add a gallon on Sea Foam to the fuel tank (or drain the tank). Grease out drive and power steering fittings.
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Self winterizing is not for everyone but here's how I used to do it on my V-6 equipped Sea Ray 182:
Put fuel stabiler in last tank of gas for the season.
Run the boat around on the water to thoroughly heat up oil and get stabilizer into carburetor.
Pull boat home on trailer.
Put water ear muffs on out drive and start the motor to get hot oil moving around a bit.
Turn off boat.
Change oil and filter.
Use a pump that screws onto the oil dipstick tube for this.
The pump with a small diameter tube that is pushed down the dipstick tube was a failure from me.
Restart boat (with water flowing) and run it for about ten minutes to circulate new oil.
Turn off boat.
Set up anti freeze bucket with hose from bucket to ear muffs.
Fill bucket with three to five gallons of pink -50° antifreeze.
Remove spark arrester from engine.
Start antifreeze flow through ear muffs.
Start engine.
Observe coolant as it leaves engine.
Once it is fully pink, start sprayong fogging oil into carburetor intake.
DON'T LET THE ENGINE RUN OUT OF ANTIFREEZE AND RUN DRY.
If you are fast you will only need three gallons.
Fog until the engine quits.
Remove blue cooling system plugs. Look carefully all around the engine so you
don't miss any.
Replace spark arrester.
Replace spin-on fuel filter/water separater if equipped.
Using Vise-Grip needle nose pliers pinch closed the tube feeding oil to the outdrive from the oil reservoir.
Drain outdrive oil.
Observe quantity and color as it drains. Tan and milky means you have a bad seal allowing water into the gear case. So does any visible water coming out. No oil coming out is bad too!
Refill gear case using correct oil and the manufacturer's instructions.
Remove pinch pliers.
Pull boat drain plug.
Pull prop.
Grease prop shaft
Replace prop and cover it to prevent mice from nesting in it.
Lowes and HD sell a rubber plumbing cap with clamp that fits the prop perfectly.
Put boat in its storage location.
Trim drive down to almost touch the floor or ground.
Pull battery.
Put battery on battery maintainer for the winter.
All of the required items can be bought at WalMart, Parafunalia or any marine store.
I'll bet there are some additional or differing opinions on this that will be posted soon.
It is an advantage to have your boat on a trailer so you can do this yourself. My current boat is too big for that and as a result, I can only change the oil.