by: Bob "Red" Piette

Pretty soon, it’ll be time to put the ol’ battle ship away.  Here are some tips you need to do so the spring start up goes smoothly.

First,  lets look at the standard 2 stroke. Add fuel stabilizer to your gas. Then run the motor for at least 15 minuets. After that, as the motor is running, spray fogging oil in to the carbs until it dies out.  Pull the spark plugs, squirt fogging oil into each cylinder - about 1-2 ozs. Rotate the motor by hand and replace the plugs.  Replace the lower unit gear lube.  If the lube has a milky look to it, get the motor in and have a mechanic look at the prop shaft and seals for wear.  Grease any fittings and leave the motor in a vertical position. The last item is something most of us don’t do often enough, replace the water impeller. If you’re mechanically inclined this is an easy thing to do.  If not, don’t wait till spring when everyone is busy,  get it done now.

Now,  for you guys with direct fuel injected motors like the Opti-Max. The only thing that’s different is you don’t use fogging oil.  Pull the plugs and add 2 ozs of your two-cycle oil into the cylinders.  Then do the rest of the winterizing outlined above.

4 stroke motors are winterized the same as two strokes.

Now for some talk on regular maintenance.  All two cycle motors are lubricated with oil thru the fuel plume. Since this is burned each time the cylinder fires it results in some build up of carbon in the motor.  This build up, over time, is the major cause of stuck rings, scored walls and eventually blown heads.  It is very easy to keep this build up to a minimum. Some of the products out there are meant to be injected into the carbs.  These products are very good if your motor hasn’t been cleaned for a while.  Now don’t be alarmed when you use this stuff because you won’t believe the black gunk that’ll come out the exhaust when the motor is restarted.  The other products are added to the fuel tank and help keep the build up from happening in the first place. So, as you can see it’s very easy to do and should be part of your normal maintenance during the boating season.

These are things that I do, if your not sure about your type of motor, talk to your marine mechanic.

Bob Piette