Winterizing Information

[eurolarva]

I just thought I would post a thread to help some of the new guys here. Winterizing your motor is very important. Especially with older chryslers that are prone to leak a little on the lower unit. There are many things that should be done that are covered in your service manuals. A few important ones I will cover here.<br /><br />Most important is to drain and refill lower unit in the fall instead of the spring. If your lower unit has a leak and is filled with water you stand a chance of the water freezing in the winter and can crack the lower unit not to mention the damage it can do to the gears inside. Chryslers mostly should use High Performance lower unit lube. Check your manual for specs on this oil.<br /><br />Some sort of fuel stabilizer should have been used on the last outing. Gas shelf life unstabilized is about 6 months. If you run your motor with the gas line disconnected to run all the gas out you should use a fogging oil while doing this. Running the motor out of gas can lead to a lean condition and can cause piston and cylinder damage. Spray fogging oil into the choke while running gas out to help eliminate this. The fogging oil is flammable so the motor may continue to run on just the fogging oil. When done remove the plugs and spray each cylinder with the fogging oil, replace the plugs with wires disconnected and cycle the starter a few revolutions to work the oil in.<br /><br />Top off gas cans and tanks using stabilizer in the fuel. Hit all the greese zerks with marine grade grease. Clean and lightly oil the bendix on the starter. Make sure batteries are charged and check them monthly and use a trickle charge on them periodically to make sure they are fully charged. Also make sure all battery conncetions are disconnected. If batteries are not fully charged they can freeze in the winter.<br /><br />There are other things that are covered in the manual, but I wanted to pass along a few things that I thought were most important.