Winterizing your boat -help needed!

I have a question that I appreciate anyones help answering. I have a four stroke yamaha 115 horse outboard motor and was wondering if I absolutely need to winterize the boat OR….can I just change the lower gear lube and the oil in the motor, and put some stabilizer in the fuel and call her good? Please let me know if you have a four-stroke motor and what you do or what you know about doing it either way. Thank you so much for any reply’s and please do reply as this is my 2nd year with a boat, and I did winterize it last year but am leaning towards just doing the lower unit, changing the oil, and stabilizing the fuel.

Put stabilizer in the tank and run it a while.Top off fuel.Changing oil,I check mine for water and change it in the spring but you can do it now if you want.Thats it.

I have a Yamaha 150, and here’s the fall routine I go through each year. It doesn’t really take too long, but I think it’s pretty comprehensive.

1) Pull trolling motor batteries and electronics and briing them in the house. Don’t set batteries on concrete basement floor…put wood down first.
2) Change engine oil and filter. (This is the one item that could wait till spring).
3) Change lower unit oil.
4) Add appropriate amount of Stabil and top tank off.
5) Fog cylinders. To do this, I pull the spark plugs. Spray a small amount of fogging agent into each of the 4 cylinders. Clean (or replace) the spark plugs and put them back in. Turn the motor over just enough to get a spark, driving the fogging agent through the cylinder.
6) Hook up a trickle charger to the starting motor for periodic charging through the winter.
7) Throw a couple of rolls of toilet paper on the floor of the boat. In the event that mice get in the boat, they’ll chew on this rather than the wires of your boat.
8) Tarp it up, and call it good.

Hope this helps.

NWBuck

It doesnt harm a battery to put it on concrete.Todays batteries are sealed unlike batteries of years ago.

There is no need to fog a 4 stroke.A marine mechanic just told me this.Just like parking your car for a few months.But it wont hurt it if you do.Also we have dry cold winters here and moisture isnt really a problem.

Toilet paper makes very good bedding for mice.

NWBuck.. and anyone else..

Rather than the toilet paper, put a few bars of Dove soap in there(still in package is fine). I dont know why, but mice dont like the stuff. They kept mice out of my camper and motorhome for years when I had them.

Its not a bad idea to stick a bar in the tongue of your trailer too… more than once have I had critters get in there and chew up the wires.

I have a YAMAHA F150 that I winterized on Sunday. I called the the tournament support tech’s they said the following: Stabil in the tank and run the engine for 5 minutes so everthing is warm and then change both engine oil and lower unit fluids – easier to do once everything is warm. Pull each plug and spray 3 seconds of fogging into each cylinder and then turn engine over a few times with the kill switch pulled so you don’t start the engine and you will be good until spring.

Good Luck!

ted

I always make sure that putting stabilizer in the fuel is the first thing I do, so that if you do start the engine up to warm up the oil, it’ll treat the hoses, carbs, cylinders, everything, because you’re running that stabilizer thru the system.

Thanks to all of you who replied, I greatly appreciate it. It sounds like the only thing that isn’t super easy to do if your not familiar with it is the fogging part, otherwise the only thing I am paying for at Crystal Pierz marine is for them to do that. Last year I paid over $200.00 for them to stabilize the fuel, change the lower unit and fog the cylinders, I had already changed the oil in the motor, doesn’t sound like it’s worth it to pay them to do those three things at all. I will probably just do the stabilizer, change oil and change lower unit and call her good.

I use Sea Foam. I’ve heard of too many issues with Stabil. I had some varnishing issues with a weed wacker after storage a few years back…in MAY have been the Stabil…hard to tell for sure. Since I switched to Sea Foam…no problems.

I looked up the placing batteries on wood a couple years ago at a battery manufactures web site. That is a practice from days gone by.

I bought a three bank charger from JollyAnn a couple years ago. The side benefit to having a on board charger is that I don’t take my batteries out for the winter.

I check the water levels, add distilled water if needed* (see note)
Clean off the terminals if needed.
Plug it in for the winter.
Go ice fishing.

Wade suggested the MinnKota 330(?) Doesn’t really matter what brand as long as it has the “maintian” function built into the charger.

* Prior to having an on board charger, I was always adding water in the fall and in the warm months. Basicly the regular chargers “boil” the water out of batteries…or they are under charged if they aren’t on long enough. Using a charger with the built in, computer operated maintainer, it gets just the right charge before going into the “trickle charge” mode. I keep checking the water levels but they never need water.

Great way to save on the labor of pulling your batteries AND extend the life of your boats batteries.

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Pull each plug and spray 3 seconds of fogging into each cylinder and then turn engine over a few times with the kill switch pulled so you don’t start the engine and you will be good until spring.

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Good point…forgot to mention the pulling the kill switch thing. Fogging the cylinders is really quite easy, and certainly cheap insurance if the boat isn’t stored in a heated garage.

NWBuck

Ted Merdan’s post is correct. I worked at a dealer for 8 years and I did most of the winterizing. Just too add too Ted’s post is that you do not want too fog a efi or dfi motor while the engine is running through the air induction system. You can dirty up the injectors with the fogging spray. With four strokes you diffinitly better make sure you get the fuel stabilizer into the carbs or you will be visiting your favorite mechanic for a carb cleaning session. I reccommend that you run the stabilizer in the boat when you getting close to putting away for the year. Get some time on it because it takes awhile for the stabilizer to mix with the gas. Batteries can stay in the boat just disconnect all leads from the boat and leave a charger hooked up and charge once and awhile along with maintaining the water fluid. Another tip you can flush your livewells with rv antifreeze and this will keep the lines from cracking. Mice dont like open compartments so leave the compartments open and take your stuff out of them. Put some laundry dryer sheets in the boat and this seems to keep the little furballs out as well. Also slap some tap on the prop to cover the exhaust hole to keep moisture and critters out as well.