It's that Time of Year.....

[S10CHEVY]

When some of up north, need to store our boats for winter. They don't make them to break ice, lol. So with that in mind, and our temps starting to drop into the 20's at night, and water freezes, that we should think about our boats and motors.

Now is the time to drain your lower end units of it's oil, and putting new in. This way you will also know if water has gotten into it. If so, now would be the time to take it to be repaired. I store mine in the cellar, being it is a 9 1/2 hp Johnson. But this spring, when I had it in for repairs, here my seals had broken, and there was water in the oil. If your oil looks a milky color when draining, it is probably water. If left outside that way, the lower unit could crack, and end up costing more money.

I also brought in my battery tonight. I opened the cells up, and the water was down a bit. So I put in some that we keep stored in bottles, that has sat for a while. Then put it on the battery charger, to charge it up. Batteries store better, and last longer, if they are kept well maintained.
Does anyone else have some helpful hints for winterizing? Keith

[Shellback]

Good info if you are ready to throw in the towel now, but I'm not done fishing till the water gets hard. I'm in N. E. PA and there's a dusting of snow on the ground and it's 20 degrees, tonight's low supposed to go into the teens. It's gonna warm up again later in the week. If we are lucky here, the Susquehanna river stays open till Christmas or so, and then it will open up again late Feb or early March. I turn to walleye fishing now as the colder water turns them on. My winterazation consists mainly of running stabilizer in the gas, changing lower unit oil in the late fall, checking for water intrusion at the time, and changing the motor oil. My outboard is a four stroke. I also have an onboard charger maintainer that I keep plugged in through the winter. I just have one of those outside canopies to keep my boat under for now. But once the river freezes, I take the tarp off it and then I have a wooden frame structure and a heavy duty tarp cover to put her to bed for the 6 to eight weeks she's out of action.