Winterizing your Mercruiser

[JASinIL2006]

Wow.. this has been a very informative thread to read.. Thanks all!! I’ve got an ‘87 Cobalt with Mercruiser V8 and Alpha 1.. It never occurred to me to winterize it last winter. It was sitting in my insulated garage and water was sitting in the block. Yesterday I started it up for the first time this season with the muffs on and I was appalled at the amount of rusty looking water that came out of the exhaust for at least 10 minutes of run time.. Lesson learned.. I’ll be draining the block this winter and will try my best to pull the lower drive as well which I’ve yet to do - but it was recently serviced just before I bought it. So.. I’ll put this on my to-do list for each winter even though we rarely get freezing temps here in the high desert of Los Angeles county.

Except maybe for the first time, pulling the drive takes literally five or ten minutes. The hardest part is really just pulling thing thing off the boat and getting it on the stand. Putting it back on is just about as easy. If you haven't yet watched it, iboats member achris has posted this excellent video (below) that shows exactly how it's done. It really is simple.

I personally don't mess with filling the engine block with water, but if you do, please check out Mercruiser's recommended procedure for those who want to use antifreeze. (Note: it still involves draining the block and it does NOT involve feeding antifreeze to the outdrive via muffs.)

achris's video on pulling an Alpha drive: http://youtu.be/w3O63YTOhn8

 

[Rick Stephens]

(Note: it still involves draining the block and it does NOT involve feeding antifreeze to the outdrive via muffs.)

Ain't that the truth.