Pontoon Boat & Deck Boat Forum

Hello,

I am in the process of getting my 'toon/outboard ready for winter storage. I am following what it says to do in my owner's manual .. change gear and engine oil, fuel stabilizer in fuel, flush water passages etc. One of the steps says to "Spray entire powerhead with a rust preventative (not a penetrating oil product). This is where I am confused. Is this just the main engine block/area under the top cover? If so, what product should I use to do this? This is my first outboard so I just want to make sure I do this correctly. I have a Suzuki DF90A. There is also no mention of "fogging" the engine that I have seen in other posts?

Thank you

What part of the country do you live ???

In Southwest VA, we don't need to do anything other than put some Fuel Stabilizer in if not using the boat. Ours is on a lift at our condo. I've been told to just make sure the drive is all the way down and not trimmed up at all. Last winter, we took the toon out in mid Jan when the temp hit 60 degrees and there was no wind.

I service the boat one a year and do the oil, oil filter, fuel filter, lower unit oil, etc..... Now that we have an outboard, life is grand.

Strake wrote:What part of the country do you live ???

In Southwest VA, we don't need to do anything other than put some Fuel Stabilizer in if not using the boat. Ours is on a lift at our condo. I've been told to just make sure the drive is all the way down and not trimmed up at all. Last winter, we took the toon out in mid Jan when the temp hit 60 degrees and there was no wind.

I service the boat one a year and do the oil, oil filter, fuel filter, lower unit oil, etc..... Now that we have an outboard, life is grand.

I live Cartersville, GA. It's about 45 miles north of Atlanta. It is generally not too cold here during the winter .. but we have had some days of snow and temps below 25. I keep the boat covered on a trailer here at my house.

I think I have everything ready to go as far as changing oils, lubing things, and stabilizing the fuel. I was just uncertain about spraying the rust preventative. I have read that CRC 6-56 could be a good choice but I am uncertain.

I pull each of the plugs, and fog the cylinders (then reinstall the plugs). Can't say what that fogging spray is... Hmm...
Anyway, come spring, you just fire her up, and the fogging stuff doesn't make any difference.

Oh, and do you have live-wells? make sure they're dry.

creel wrote:I was just uncertain about spraying the rust preventative. I have read that CRC 6-56 could be a good choice but I am uncertain.

While I personally don't think you must spray down with a rust preventative (since I assume by your location, you don't use in salt water), this is what I have used on all my outboards and jet skis that were used in salt water:

http://www.corrosionx.com/corrosionx.html

West Marine usually keeps it in stock but you can get via Amazon.

I have never sprayed down any of my outboards that were/are only used in freshwater.

+1 for CRC 56

With our boat kept in a boathouse and since we use it some until Thanksgiving, I've never done full winterizing. We're just off the water about 4 months of the year.

The best thing you can do is use Stabil or Startron in the fuel tank and use 100% gasoline.

Bamaman wrote:With our boat kept in a boathouse and since we use it some until Thanksgiving, I've never done full winterizing. We're just off the water about 4 months of the year.

The best thing you can do is use Stabil or Startron in the fuel tank and use 100% gasoline.

Sounds good. I've been using 100% gas for every fill up except the first and have been adding Star Tron each fill up. Now that I changed all the fluids, I'll just make sure things are lubed and it should be OK. We live about 6 miles from the lake so we may be going out on some of these nicer fall days up until it gets really cold.

See my post on thread "Winterizing in Oklahoma"