How do I winterize a 4 stroke Mercury 60 HP boat engine?

Question

How do I winterize a 4 stroke Mercury 60 HP boat engine?

Answer 1

stabilize the fuel with Stabel buy it at any auto parts store

Drain and refill the engine and the lower unit fluids

Run your engine on muffs then spray Storage Sealent into the air filter untill it dies

unhook your batteries

your cost about 15$ cost at a shop around 80$

Answer 2

With an outboard it's not as critical as an I/O.  Nothing is going to freeze and crack as long as your motor has been in an upright position so that the water drains out of the exhaust (this is generally taken care of when you pull your boat out of the water, they are self draining.  So as far as freezing you are ok.  However.....there are a few things to be done for long term storage.  You will want to change the engine oil and the gear oil (this is just general maintenance, but most people do it while winterizing).  The biggest thing is to stabilize the fuel.  Fuel these days is terrible quality, and if you don't stabilize it (it starts to gum up after about a month) you will end up rebuilding your carburetors in the spring.  You can't just put stabilizer in your tank, you have to run it through the engine so that it gets into your carbs.  Also, you need to fog the engine cylinders.  You do this by spraying fogging oil into your carburetors while the motor is running, after you have stabilized the fuel.  Keep spraying the oil into the carbs until you see a lot of pure white smoke coming out of the exhaust (you will want to run the engine on a hose to do this).  You'll have to keep your hand on the carb linkage to rev the engine, because the oil will stall the engine if it is at an idle.  When you see the smoke coming out the exhaust let the engine go to an idle and really spray the carbs good, so that the engine stalls from it.  Let it stall while you are spraying it, and you are now done.  Next season you will be able to put it in the water and go with no maintenance.  When you first start it next spring, you'll see a bunch of white smoke come out of the exhaust.  This is normal, it is the fogging oil being blown out of the cylinders.  You will get a lot of false info on how to winterize....I garuntee this is the correct way, I've dealt with boats for almost 15 years.  I work with them.

I read the article the guy is talking about......it is somewhat accurate (I know all about iboats, where I work now we sell them their products).  They have a lot of good stuff, but they are computer nerds....they know nothing about boats.  The article claims that if you drain your boat's fuel you are ok without stabilizer.  When I worked for the boat dealerships this was the biggest reason we did so many carb rebuilds in the spring.....people thought draining was good enough.....remember this....fuel SUCKS these day, and there is still a residue of fuel in your carb even after you drain it.  Do you realize how small the jets, needle and seat are in your carb?  STABILIZE IT!

Answer 3

Been using this article (I printed it and keep it in my manual) for 3 years and never had any problems

Answer 4

Winterizing a 4-cycle outboard is quite simple. At our marina, we don't worry about fogging the 4-cycle outboards as most manufacturers do NOT recommend it. Some folks may say "I still fog the motor anyway," but what the manufacturer says is what we go by, especially since we're a MerCruiser dealer. Trim it all the way down so that the water drains out of both the engine itself and the lower unit. Make sure you stabilize the fuel (use Sta-bil, it's the only stuff we use and we winterize and store over 300 boats) for the amount in it, but it doesn't hurt to overcompensate a tiny bit, just to be sure. Then, you can take a good trash bag or anything of that sort and cover the propeller hub. The reason you want to trim the motor down is to obviously (as I stated above) drain the motor and the lower unit. You don't want water in the lower unit because frozen water can split the gearcase and propeller in half, let alone the engine block. Putting a bag over the propeller hub or the entire lower unit (as we do) will prevent any rain water accumulation in the lower unit. 4-cycle motors like to be stored trimmed down if they can be, but not all the way, just in case you have trim motor issues in the spring (you never know with a boat). Once you've done that, you're pretty much set to go for the winter. Don't forget to disconnect your battery as well. Good Luck with your boat!

Answer 5

check in with crystel peirez marine and ask for estimate for the winter.