Use your boat

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I just had over $2500 worth of work done on my Mercruiser and some of it was due to the boat not being used for a few years. For various reasons I did not get to using the boat. I had dealt with the gas tank issues so that was not an issue but both tilt/trim rams had issues and needed to be replaced with rebuilt ones.

All the bellows needed replacing but maybe it was time anyway.

The engine had a lot of rust at startup but settled down after a bit.

The mechanic went through 5 gallons of gas so hopefully he ran it enough to shake things out.

So run your boat often.
 
especially if you don't get all the water out before storage... That means all cooling circuits, exhaust manifolds, risers, etc. Fog the motor light oil and store with the out-drive in mid-position ...

Still will need fresh grease and oil at the beginning of the new season
smile.gif
 
I've found 1 month is the magic number for keeping things running. Run your engines at least once a month and they should be good to go, any longer and you're pushing your luck as far as it not starting or ending up with a dirty carb, dead battery or whatever.
 
That's true Don, but using them or not is still going to cost you money. Best case scenario would be temperature/humidity controlled storage for when not in use. That would cost too!
 
I guess the answer is if your not going to use your boat you should start it and run it for maybe 15 minutes until the thermostat opens and then run through all the systems.
 
Like the saying "use it or lose it".


The only other bad to storing a boat is if you are going to let it sit in a garage, shop, or any other covered shed is take your batteries out and either use them for something else or have a good to great charger on them. My dad and I learned one valuable lesson with his boat. That is if we leave the deltaVolt dual pro 10 amp 2bank charger on the three batteries be sure to check the water level as even with the maintenance charge with the 4 cycles it delivers it will somehow lower the levels?? I should have known better, but we didn't really know as the previous owner of the boat didn't warn us about that little tid bit of information.

Keeping the tank full of fuel if you just use it seasonally when it's not winter. A cool other trick is to pull your spark plugs and fog the cylinders. My best advice to newbies us to use the 360formula Marine StaBil.

I use it even with daily driver. Usually just 2ounces for 16gallons as I don't have but a 18gal tank in my truck.
 
Hey brocluno. Yeah, I have s very old model of the battery tender, jr.

Would never really thought to use it instead of the big charger that has a "float charge" as I know it's got four stages.

I'll let my dad know.


Plus I found out though I didn't realize it when I did it was that the three AGM batteries I have in jeeps cannot use the batterytender, jr. They have to use the "plus version" as the 1.25 amp is better for them than the .75amp charge of the junior.

They are reasonably priced. I should buy two of the "plus" versions soon.
 
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Use non-ethanol gas for one thing. Instead of taking the battery out or putting charger on it, install a master kill switch and shut it down before parking it. Always...I mean...ALWAYS drop the outdrive so that its resting on it's own and not being supported by hydraulic pressure. ALWAYS drop the outdrive in the water before turning it over, don't even "bump" to see if it will hit before launching, water acts as a lubricant. If you store your Merc after using in freshwater, yeah, you'll get some rust, but not that bad. In seawater, death if you do not fully flush out. non ethanol fuel will last for months if fuel tank is properly closed. I wouldn't sweat fogging the pistons for anything shorter than a 2 year sit, those things are pretty much coated in oil already after use, Merc engines have different specs that car engines. If anything, trailer tires get the worse of it. Keep boat covered, even if parked inside, to keep dust and grime off of it.
 
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Use non-ethanol gas for one thing.


Easy to say tough to do. The closest pure gas station from me is a 300 mile round trip. Your advice is quite useless in most areas of the country but thanks anyway.
 
Really? Quite useless??? I guess being that far south in Texas you can only get non-ethanol gas. I can't imagine that everybody with a boat has that dilemma, but since your generalizing, look at this:
http://www.pure-gas.org/extensions/map.html

Wouldn't seem to me to reach the definition of "most areas." Please do some research before you open you mouth in the future.
 
I am not sure of all the details, but was told by someone who owns a deli/gas station that the laws for E10 only apply to 87 octane. They can do what they want for 92 octane. In NY state several places sell high test E0 gas.
 
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