Winterizing

[Ekea]

this will be my first year winterizing my new to me 2000 Chase 263. I have a couple questions:
1. engines (3.3L F250s) - trim down and let it be? i have a few friends that dont do any more. others say to change the engine and lower unit oil. others still, say to fog the cylinders too. i dont want to ruin the motors, but dont want to do more than i need to
2. livewell and wash down. are these self draining systems (i assume wash down is not)? if not, how do you winterize these?
3. fuel - i have always done stabil marine 360 on my old boat (chevy 350 i/o). any reason to use something different?
4. after treating the fuel, is it ok to run the engine on the flush port to get the treated fuel through the engines?
5. anything else?

thanks

 

[PointedRose]

1) I agree with trim down - allows all the water to drain out. I agree with using fogging oil in the cylinders. The goal is to coat each cylinder with the fogging oil and prevent issues. Lower unit oil doesn’t have to be done annually necessarily but good to change periodically and look for any excessive metal shavings. Check the engine manual for suggested intervals on oil changes. Not difficult to do yourself though.
2) drain as much water out as you can. If you can rig a hose to connect to an air compressor you can blow out any water from the systems
3) I would recommend stabil in the fuel
4) I think the fogging oil is the last step for the engine
5) disconnect the battery and trickle charge periodically in offseason

 

[seasick]

Assuming the boat is stored on land,
You can run the motor at idle on the flush port but I prefer muffs. If you don't usually flush your motor with fresh water after each use, you may benefit by doing a salt treatment/flush .
It may be a bit late but it helps to add your gas stabilizer before taking your last trip so that the additive gets mixed into the gas more thoroughly.
Motors should be trimmed down to allow any water to drain.
LU should be drained, checked for water, pressure and vacuumed checked if anything looks suspicious. Refill and use new gaskets.

I remove props for two reasons; To check shaft for anything wrapped around the prop shaft and to eliminate them getting stolen If the prop shaft splines are dry and caked up, clean off the gunk and apply a thin coating of grease to limit rusting. I slide a short length of foam pool noodle on the shafts to keep dirt and grime from sticking to the shaft.

I fog my motor by pulling plugs, spraying fogging oil into plug holes, rotating engine manually one turn, re fogging and then a few turns. Replace plugs.
I drain my VST tank and clear bowl on motor gas filter. Just my preference. Do not forget to manually (using primer bulb) in the spring to refill VST and filter. The VST pumps should not be run dry!
Not winterizing your water systems can cause damage.
You need to drain and winterize any MSD (toilet systems), holding tanks, raw water systems, fresh water tank, faucets and sprayers and maybe livewells ( as far as drains go, raw water supply should be addressed.
If you have non self bailing fish lockers, they need to be treated too.To be on the safe side, even for self bailing lockers, I add some antifreeze just incase the drain hoses have low loops in them.

Exactly what steps you need to do depends on the plumbing to a great extent. You will need to do some research.

One issue I have with one of my boats is the mid bilge pump. For whatever reason, water accumulates in the mid bilge and does not drain into the aft bilge.( you did remove the bilge plug didn't you? I think water gets in via the anchor locker lid.
Since the auto pump does not drain the bilge completely, the standing water will freeze if it gets cold enough and the freezing kills the pump.
So I remove the pump and disconnect the power source. I have long wires on the pump so that I can unclip it and take it out of the locker but do not have to disconnect any wires.. I add antifreeze to that bilge but over time it gets diluted by rain water and will become a solid block of ice if it gets cold for extended periods.


Assuming you do not have a battery trickle charger connected and running, you should fully charge your batteries and disconnect the negative connections at the batteries. I do not remove my batteries and haven't for at least 10 years. As long as they are charged and were in decent condition and not stored in frigid locales, they will be fine.

I am sure I have missed things but hope this basic info helps.

 

[DennisG01]

this will be my first year winterizing my new to me 2000 Chase 263. I have a couple questions:
1. engines (3.3L F250s) - trim down and let it be? i have a few friends that dont do any more. others say to change the engine and lower unit oil. others still, say to fog the cylinders too. i dont want to ruin the motors, but dont want to do more than i need to

Unless you're wrapping the engine, you'll want to leave the engine down (past horizontal) so that it eliminates the possibility of water getting in behind the prop and freezing/cracking the housing. It's unlikely to happen since there's plenty of room for the ice to expand - but better safe than sorry. Don't forget to pull the prop and grease the shaft once a year.

If you're going to wait till the Spring to change oils, you need to at least check the engine oil for quality and drain a small amount of gearcase oil out to check for quality (and water).

2. livewell and wash down. are these self draining systems (i assume wash down is not)? if not, how do you winterize these?

I take the hose off the seacock and stick that in a gallon of non-tox AF. Run the fixtures till you see pink come out. This way you are guaranteed there are no pockets of water left.

3. fuel - i have always done stabil marine 360 on my old boat (chevy 350 i/o). any reason to use something different?

It's good to run a stabilizer all the time. But definitely for the last run of the season to help protect the injectors. Stabil is fine - there are others that may be better or less expensive - but Stabil is perfectly fine.

4. after treating the fuel, is it ok to run the engine on the flush port to get the treated fuel through the engines?

That is the ONLY way to get the treated fuel to the engines if you're not using stabilizer more often. But I agree with the above that it's best to run using the muffs to avoid possibly damaging the impeller.

5. anything else?

Don't "spray" fogging oil into your intake. You can foul sensors. You can, however, put a couple ounces of 2-stroke and an ounce of stabilizer in your boat-mounted fuel filter and run that through for 5 minutes. Or mix up a winterizing mix and put it in a portable tank and use that to run the engines - that would be ideal.

It absolutely can't hurt to spray some fogging oil or 2-stroke into the cylinders and turn the engine over a few times (pull the kill switch). Besides, you're going to pull the spark plugs out to check them anyways, right?

thanks

 

[Sdfish]

Great guidance here!

 

[Byram]

Seasick, Great idea on the pool noodle !!!!!!. Thats why forums are sooo valuable.

 

[Yamama04107]

I live in Maine and winterize my F350 every year. What I do: change LU oil, change engine oil, replace water separator filter, replace small fuel filter, replace engine oil filter, pull out fuel injectors and send them out to be cleaned, disconnect fuel line going into fuel filter and hook it up to a 2 gal portable tank and pour the whole bottle of this in to the gas https://www.simyamaha.com/efi-engine-storage-fogging-oil-acc-storr-it-32/ . run the engine until it starts smoking thru exhaust ports (usually about 15 minutes; shut engine off, tilt engine all the way down, take out batteries and put in cellar, put 1 gal pink antifreeze in water tank (run pump until pink comes out of nozzle, put one gal pink in toilet and pump it in to holding tank and reset the hour logger on the dash . In spring I only have to put injectors back in and launch! It can get up to 25 below here and I've never had a problem. 255 Freedom.

 

[seasick]

What do you do with the open holes in the heads where the injectors go?

 

[Yamama04107]

What do you do with the open holes in the heads where the injectors go?

Put a small rag in each. I've been using this guy for several years: https://injector-rehab.com/ . Just got them back the other day. Did approx 100 hrs this summer. 6 of them were perfect and two were underperforming by about 25%.

 

[grady33]

Put a small rag in each. I've been using this guy for several years: https://injector-rehab.com/ . Just got them back the other day. Did approx 100 hrs this summer. 6 of them were perfect and two were underperforming by about 25%.

How easy is it to remove the injectors? I have 06 F250s

 

[Yamama04107]

How easy is it to remove the injectors? I have 06 F250s

On a 2012 F350 they are easy. there is a metal clip which attaches to the rail and the injector slides in to the clip and also pushes in to the hole. I don't know how it differs from a '06 F250