Hello, John Talley here with Boats.net. Well guess what? The season is rapidly
approaching. Now if you did as you were supposed to do, and you went through the
winterization process-- whether it be a two-stroke or four-stroke-- your list of
things to check is going to be really small. If you did not, then there's
several things that you need to go ahead and do before you plop that boat in the
water. So I'm gonna take a little bit of time to show you what you need to look
for if you've already winterized or if you did not. So let me get these covers
off and I'll point out what you need to look for.
Now with the covers off we can take a more in-depth look at both a two-stroke
and a four-stroke model. Now believe it or not, it is actually easier to
winterize and de-winterize one of the larger four strokes than it is the
two-stroke. Main reason being, this is a fuel-injected engine and this is a
carbureted, and typically a carbureted one is a little bit harder to deal with
because it is an open system. In other words, the fuel system is open to outside
air and that makes it gum up a lot easier. If you winterized yours correctly,
you went through the process to find the intake on both the two-stroke and the
four-stroke, and then drain the fluid out so there's less of a chance it could gum
things up in there. First thing you want to do when you pop the cover,
make sure there's no shredded paper in there because that is a telltale sign
that a critter has made a home out of your outboard engine. Now if it looks
clean, still check it over to make sure there is no chew marks, particularly
on your wiring and on the fuel line. Now if everything looks clean, then you need
to just physically check over all your hoses and wires. Make sure nothing's
cracked, make sure nothing's loose. Now if your outboard has been winterized
properly, you shouldn't have to do anything more than to make sure your
fuel is good to go and then start it up. Now keep in mind, when you winterized
it or had it winterized, they drained the fuel out of the system and I'm going to
show you where to check that on both the two-stroke and four-stroke. Now don't get
concerned as you turn the engine over if it takes a little bit longer for those
systems to reprime and it to fire off. Also, when it does fire, if it blows out a
little bit of smoke, that's okay. Because one of the processes you go through when
you're winterizing an engine is to actually spray fogging oil inside the
combustion area. When you go to start, well guess what? It's going to burn that
off and it's going to come out of smoke. No big deal. Now if your outboard engine
was not winterize properly because, well, you forgot to do it, or yeah, I was gonna
take it out one more time and that one more time never happened and she was put
away wet so to speak. There are several things we need to look at before you try
to fire it off for the first time. One of the things I want to show you is
actually hidden behind the intake plenum on our four-stroke. So let me get that
pulled. First thing we want to point out is your fuel water separator. That is
this little guy right here. Now on your unit it may be in a different location
but this is typically what they look like and it's the first thing that the
fuel line's going to go through when it comes in from the tank. Hopefully yours
has been drained and there's nothing in there. If that is not the case, you need
to unscrew it, dump it out, clean it out, and then put it back together. Your
second item is what they call a VST tank, and inside of here you'll have a couple
of different pumps as well as a filter system. If your outboard was winterized
properly, you put in a mixture of fuel stabilizer and then brought it into the
system by actually running it for a little while. Now once that was completed,
you came over here, you removed this little drain bolt ,and you drained the
VST tank. It should be good to go. Now that didn't happen,
chances are the fuel that's in there is gonna be rather rancid, and this thing's
gonna have a real tough time trying to start with rancid fuel in there. Now
hopefully, your outboard has not been sitting for more than two to three
months. If that's the case, you're probably gonna have to pull this down
and then clean it out, and we actually have a video that shows you how to do
that on this particular model. Now before you go tearing into it, go ahead and
drain it and least give it a chance to refill and see if she starts. The last
thing you want to do is restart the engine with that old oil in it from last
season. Go ahead and bite the bullet, change both the engine oil as well as
the out drive fluid. Now that we've addressed the fuel and the oil in the
lower unit gear oil, a couple of other things you want to look at: make sure
that your timing belt is in good shape, no cracks or anything like that. The
other thing you want to address is go in and replace your spark plugs. If they
were not replaced at the time when it was winterized. Now that we've done our
four-stroke engine, let's take a peek at this little two-stroke to see what we
need to address for it. Now there is no oil that needs to be changed on the
power head on a two-stroke, but you will need to address the lower unit gear oil
if it was not changed out when you winterized it. As far as the fuel system
goes, you will need to look at the fuel water separator. Make sure it was drained.
You know, I can tell you on this one, I can see that it was not.
So we need to pull that apart, check out the filter, see if it's still good to go,
dump that mess out of there, and then we can move forward. If it was winterized
properly, then it should be good to go. If it was not, well you're gonna need to
take a peek at the carburetor to make sure it's not gummed up. Now the last
thing you want to check out is your spark plugs. Where they replaced at the
end of last season? Good to go. Go ahead and fire it off. If not, now it's the time
to go ahead and replace them before you try to start it for the first time.
Alright guys, there you have it. I've just gone over the very basics that you need
to look at before you start up your outboard for the new season. Listen if
you need any parts for your boat, why don't you come see us at Boats.net we can
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thank you for shopping here with us at Boats.net and we will see you in
the next video. Y'all have a great day.