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Boat service

Roland

Roland

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Shreveport, Louisiana
Hey guys... first off I posted about this same subject on another forum, so for those of you that frequent that board, sorry for the repeat here... for the rest of you I was wondering when you service or have your boats serviced.. at the end of the season or the beginning of next season. For the 2 years that I've owned a boat I've had the service done at the end of the season.. but today I was talking to a shop about servicing my motor including putting in a new water pump / impeller, and they advised me to have it done at the beginning of next season.. told me the oil and filters wouldn't matter since the boat would be in storage and that as far as the water pump was concerned, they said doing it now and then just having the boat sit idle for 4 months or so would not be good for the impeller... said non use was more damaging than using it. To a novice like me that makes sense, but then again my knowledge on when to service and what to service is very limited. Curious as to what some of you think... Thanks
 
I have always changed the engine oil in the fall when the season is over and the impeller and lower drive unit lube in the spring. The place where I have mine serviced recommended that schedule for my previous boat and they still do with the Bennie. they said that they feel it is better to let the engine set for longer periods with clean engine oil but better to do the other things just prior to a more active season. My previous boat was 7 years old with 365 hours and never any trouble so I think I will continue to follow their advice. They did say that the impeller change schedule for the outboard is every 3 years and it was every 2 years on my I/O.

Jack
 
I understand the logic, but an impeller should last 3 years. The mechanic is correct the hardest thing on an outboard is non-use. I change my impeller every 2 years and have never had an impeller failure. I would change the impeller and perform the service work when you have time to get it done. Put the impeller change on an every 2 year schedule and you should not have a problem.
 
Hey Rowland. The impeller on our Honda was done at 5 years and it still looked good with no cracks. I also have a water pressure guage that I installed to let me know if it is going bad. As far as oil, I would do it before you put the boat up for the winter. I'll get ours done in a couple of weeks. We'll get a warm day during the winter and go for a ride so I keep it full of fuel and I've been getting ethanol free fuel for it.
 
I'll throw in my $.02, the engine oil doesn't matter, fall or spring.

The lower unit should be checked/serviced in the fall, my reasoning behind that, if by chance you have water in the lower unit, if it freezes it will crack the lower unit.

Better safe than sorry ;)
 
I just had "EVERYTHING" serviced this past week..............Oil and filter change, lower unit gear lube change, ran antifreeze through the block, pulled the propeller, greased and replaced, greased the gimbal bearing, removed the battery, added fuel stabilizer and filled the fuel tank, and had the impeller replaced.................

All set for 2013.............
 
cwag911 said:
Hey Rowland. The impeller on our Honda was done at 5 years and it still looked good with no cracks. I also have a water pressure guage that I installed to let me know if it is going bad. As far as oil, I would do it before you put the boat up for the winter. I'll get ours done in a couple of weeks. We'll get a warm day during the winter and go for a ride so I keep it full of fuel and I've been getting ethanol free fuel for it.
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Hey guys, thanks for the input....I appreciate it. Carl, I envy the fact that you can find ethanol free fuel.... When I first bought my toon a couple of years ago, there were two Chevron stations that sold ethanol free fuel, but in the past year they cratered and are now only selling 10% Ethanol fuel.... The only place locally that I've heard still sells ethanol free gas is a CITGO station all the way across town... and I read that it's only on their 93 octane fuel... which leads me to 2 more questions... first any of you have any problem with using CITGO... I heard it was not an upper tier fuel... secondly, would it be harmful to my outboard if the only way I could run ethanol free fuel was to run their 93 octane? It never ends!!!!!! :lol:
 
Hey Roland..........

Ethanol free fuel is all our marina sells here at Lake Anna............
 
Roland said:
Hey guys, thanks for the input....I appreciate it. Carl, I envy the fact that you can find ethanol free fuel.... When I first bought my toon a couple of years ago, there were two Chevron stations that sold ethanol free fuel, but in the past year they cratered and are now only selling 10% Ethanol fuel.... The only place locally that I've heard still sells ethanol free gas is a CITGO station all the way across town... and I read that it's only on their 93 octane fuel... which leads me to 2 more questions... first any of you have any problem with using CITGO... I heard it was not an upper tier fuel... secondly, would it be harmful to my outboard if the only way I could run ethanol free fuel was to run their 93 octane? It never ends!!!!!! :lol:
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All you need to do to run ethanol fuel in your Yamaha is this

http://www.yamaha-motor.com/yamalube/categories/additives/0/all-additives-products/10006/details#productscroll

That is what it is meant for. They say 1 oz per 3 gallons of fuel, it's cheap insurance and recommended by Yamaha so no worries from a warranty standpoint. If you ran the 93 octane than they say you should be adding in another additive called Yamalube Ring Free PLUS, to help your engine not carbon up.

Derrick
 
BulldogsCadillac said:
All you need to do to run ethanol fuel in your Yamaha is this

http://www.yamaha-motor.com/yamalube/categories/additives/0/all-additives-products/10006/details#productscroll

That is what it is meant for. They say 1 oz per 3 gallons of fuel, it's cheap insurance and recommended by Yamaha so no worries from a warranty standpoint. If you ran the 93 octane than they say you should be adding in another additive called Yamalube Ring Free PLUS, to help your engine not carbon up.

Derrick
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So Derrick, just to make sure I read you correctly, probably not a good idea to run a 93 octane fuel ( ethanol free or with ethanol )in my yammy right.. so if i run an 87 octane fuel with ethanol, I should just use the yamalube fuel stabilizer and conditioner plus.... and do not need the ring free product, correct?

Roland
 
Roland said:
So Derrick, just to make sure I read you correctly, probably not a good idea to run a 93 octane fuel ( ethanol free or with ethanol )in my yammy right.. so if i run an 87 octane fuel with ethanol, I should just use the yamalube fuel stabilizer and conditioner plus.... and do not need the ring free product, correct?

Roland
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Well to say it's a bad idea sounds funny, but if you read your owners manual,(i thought I read somewhere you had a 75hp correct?) it will tell you that your motor is 'optimized' to run on 87 octane fuel, burning 91 or 93 could just cause the motor to build up carbon so therefore you should run the ring free plus additive. You CAN still put it in if your running 87 with ethanol, just as a cleaner, but isn't really necessary. So yes if running up to 10% ethanol 87 octane fuel, put in the fuel stabilizer. The good thing is that when you winterize just change the ratio to 1 oz per gallon and your all set. This is all info that I took off of Yamaha's site, in their frequently asked questions and reading about the different additives. I have the 200 SHO and that is one of the selling features of it is that you only need to burn regular grade fuel. I would talk to your yamaha dealer too, although some dealers don't always stay up and fresh with the manufacturer's recommendations, which is why I turned to the wonderful world wide Web! Haha

Derrick
 
My dealer told me to run Ring Additive if I do a lot of idling as that's what helps creat carbon build up.

High rpm running burns it off more..... I run it all the time though, as it's cheap insurance, and I'm only running a 20hp !!!!!

My 2 cents ...... :D

Smitty
 
Ring-free is expensive at about $42 a quart but for everyday use it's only 1 oz. per 10 gallons of fuel. A quart will do 320 gallons, roughly. Cheap insurance. Steve
 
I believe in changing the oil in the fall, and here is why: Byproducts of combustion create acids which naturally gets into the oil. Also you get moisture in the oil from use, some is boiled away when the engine gets up to operating temp, some does not, and the acid does not get boiled off. So if you wait until spring, the acids in the old dirty oil gets a chance to work on corroding things. Besides, take care of everything in the fall and when the first nice day comes in the spring you can go without fuss.

I might however consider doing repairs in the spring, because if you have an issue it would still be under the 90 day or whatever warranty on repairs. Same as with battery replacement.
 
+1 on changing motor oil in the fall, you don't want your engine sitting in combustion byproduct oil all winter. I also do the lower end drive in fall because if by chance you had any water get it you don't want that freezing up, plus you have the bonus of being ready to go in the spring.

LT1GMC said:
I believe in changing the oil in the fall, and here is why: Byproducts of combustion create acids which naturally gets into the oil. Also you get moisture in the oil from use, some is boiled away when the engine gets up to operating temp, some does not, and the acid does not get boiled off. So if you wait until spring, the acids in the old dirty oil gets a chance to work on corroding things. Besides, take care of everything in the fall and when the first nice day comes in the spring you can go without fuss.

I might however consider doing repairs in the spring, because if you have an issue it would still be under the 90 day or whatever warranty on repairs. Same as with battery replacement.
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