Iowa Boaters (Colo: house, storage, store)

[Mercruiserdr]

For those of you who own water toys the season is coming to an end ( make that ended long ago ) and its time to put it up for the winter.

WARNING , if your pride and joy is an Inboard Outboard IT MUST BE WINTERIZED !
Failure to do so will result in very expensive damage to your engine and or its various cooling components !

Even those equipped with a heat exchanger need attention to avoid damage.

Those of you with outboards need not worry about freeze damage as long as you allow the engine to drain after use , that includes running it on a flusher.
To do so simply allow the outboard to remain in an upright position until water stops draining from it.

NOTE: NEVER run any water cooled marine engine without a water supply to its cooling system, even for a short period of time !
If you do so , YOU WILL DAMAGE ITS WATER PUMP , count on it , I dont give a damn what your fishing or beer buddies tell ya, or even yor old uncle who was in the navy.
I am a Trained Marine Tech with over 20 years of experience , and I am telling you that is a NO NO !

If your boat is being stored in an unheated enviroment it is in danger of freezing , PERIOD !
This is Iowa , It does get very cold in the winter !

If you do not know how to properly protect your craft or are not positive that it is protected , take it to someone who does to get it serviced , I know its costly, however its far cheaper than an engine replacement.

I highly recomend running a fuel stabilizer through its system before any storage of a month or longer , this especially applies to carbureted engines both 2 and 4 stroke.
Some people recomend simply running the engine till it runs out of fuel , I do not , that might be ok with a 4 stroke , however that 2 stroke relys on its fuel for lubrication also , which means you are also running it out of oil.

EFI and DFI injected engines will fare better due to their sealed systems and slower evaporation of the fuel , however any system stored for over six months should be treated just to be on the safe side.
I had to rebuild and clean up a DFI system this past summer after it had been stored for 7 years , with untreated fuel , that was a very expensive lesson for the crafts owner.

All types of marine engines should be fogged before even short term winter storage !
I have encountered engines from 502 V8's to single cylinder mini jobs with cylinder damage due to being stored without proper fogging treatment.

Now is when you should change that gear lube also.
The reason being that if by some chance you have a leak and your marine gear lube has become contaminated it to will freeze and do damage to your gearcase , and those puppies are not cheap.

USE ONLY A QUALITY MARINE GEAR LUBE !

Marine lube is formulated to blend with water if it happens to become contaminated by a leak or condensation , this is important because it will continue to lubricate instead of seperating and starving the components of lubrication.

AND PULL THE DAMN DRAIN PLUG OUT !

With its plug in place your pride and joy is nothing but an expensive bathtub on a trailer , and yes it will take on water even with a cover on it ,, even an expensive one, COUNT ON IT !
You will not believe how many very nice boats I have encountered completely full of water because their owners did not pull the plug and never thought to look under the cover to see if everything was ok.
One of them even broke its axles while sitting in the guys driveway it got so heavy !!!
I have seen hulls permanentely damaged by the weight of the water in them !
Yes, if it gets wet inside the boat that is a real bad thing , believe me !

Now, just a few reminders if you take your craft in for servicing.

Remember to leave the keys in the boat .
Honest peeps, the thing is sitting on a trailer , do you really think someone is going to start it up and drive it out of there ?

PUHLEASE , remove all your little trinkets from around the engine area , Ok ?
leaving all that crap packed in there is a hassle for the person working on your boat , it means they have to take the time to move it out of their way.

For those of you who are now thinking so what its not my problem.
That person wasting time moving the crap you are to much of a lazy slob to clean up yourself, or looking all over hell for the keys you hid somewhere if you left them at all , is doing so at your expense.
And I know for a fact that Marine Techs are horribly slow at cleaning up other peoples messes and pathetic at hide and go seek.

[Mercruiserdr]

By the way.

For those of you who sleep soundly at night knowing your untreated I/O is sitting comfy this winter in some heated garage or storage building.

One of my customers used to forego the expense of winterization because he kept his boat in a friends heated garage , two years ago an ice storm knocked out their power for almost a week .
Nobody even gave a second thought about the boat in the garage , till spring when they discovered it had a nasty surprize in store for them.

Another customer knew their boat was safe inside their heated garage so they never worried about winterizing it.
Then last year they took a trip to florida to catch a week long cruise to get away from that horrible Iowa winter.
While they were away, Jr. decided to have a party, and Jr. being the smart kid he is knew better than to hold it in the house where something might be broken , so he had it in the garage.
Jr.s plan was almost flawless because Mom & Pop were clueless that anything had transpired while they were away having a great time on that cruise.
Till something tattled on Jr.that is.
HEY , he only rolled the boat outside for one night !

Yep, your boats just fine, dont worry about it and get back to sleep.

[thtapler]

You are a wealth of information, sir. I don't even have a boat but I still read your posts haha.

[Mercruiserdr]

Originally Posted by thtapler

You are a wealth of information, sir. I don't even have a boat but I still read your posts haha.

Thank You for the kind words !

That is one of the advantages of being raised an Iowa Farmboy , you become an expert in many fields.