So it's that time of year again, but this year brought a new boat &amp; lack of experience in preventive maintenance. Are there specific precautions that need to be taken when the temps may dip into freezing? Is there water that needs to be drained to keep from freezing and wrecking things? What does a winterize consist of on an inboard? <BR> <BR>A friend cracked a block from not draining an I/O a few years back... tryin to avoid that one<img src="http://www.wakeworld.com/MB/Discus/clipart/angry.gif" border=0> <BR> <BR>Thanks!!!!

Matt, take it to your local shop and have them winterize it. the former owner of my boat did it himself and missed one plug... I ended up with a boat with a new motor and he ended up out $3,700 <BR> <BR>It only takes missing one plug to crack the block. <BR>

If your planning on doing some winter ridin dont winterize...get a couple of block heaters. Thats what I run and haven't had any problems. You can leave em on the block (they're magnetic) while running the boat.

depends how cold. If it is just going to be below freezing at night and then warms up during the day like here you should be alright for a while longer. We're consistently in the twenties at night right now and I'm still taking the boat out during the day, no problems. The mechanic who winterized my boat last year told me you have to have sustained tempatures below freezing for a couple of days to actually do serious damage <BR> <BR>(Message edited by sperbet on September 30, 2005)

Nothing to do with freezing, but two things they normally do (other than annual maintenance stuff like impellor, etc.) is fog the cylinder walls with rust inhibitor and change the engine oil so that any water, etc. in the oil doesn't hang out in there all winter. <BR> <BR>I hear that so long as you run the engine once a month or so, you don't need to fog or charge the battery, etc. <BR> <BR>As far as oil goes, it's kind of hard to change the oil in the fall (for the winter) when you use the boat in the winter, ya know? In the past, I've ended up doing it in January. <BR> <BR>(Message edited by toyotafreak on September 30, 2005)

I usually use a small ceramic space heater in my F.I. I/O but would be skeptical of using on a boat with a carb. I put it either on the engine, on top of the air cleaner/spark arrestor or beside the engine in one of the storage areas blowing toward the back so the air will circulate to the engine compartment. Ive also used a regular 75 watt drop light placed under the engine but supported so it doesnt sit right on the hull as they do get pretty hot but if its freezing outside they cant do that much damage.