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Winterize older 125 hp Johnson outboard

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Wendy

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"We bought an older outboard i

"We bought an older outboard in summer and are not sure how to winterize it. It is starting to freeze here at night, so we need to do something soon. Can anyone tell me what needs to be done? I assume we need to drain the water out of the leg, but am not sure how. Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks"
 
"Wendy, there are a number of

"Wendy, there are a number of things that need to be done to winterize your motor. I'm not sure how old "older" is though. Here's what I do for my 80's era motor.....

Treat the gas with 2+4 fuel conditioner. run the motor until you have been able to smell it in the exhaust for several minutes at a minimum. I run the whole last tank conditioned.

During you're last boat outing, pull the boat onto the trailer, and before you shut it off, spray storage fogging oil into the motor until it smokes profusely. Shut it off immediatly.

Take the boat home. Tilt the motor up and down a few times to get all the water out. Remove the propeller and grease the shaft. Look for fishing line around the shaft (it can cut the seal).

Find and grease all the zerks on the motor. One on each of the three cover latches. 2 on the tilt tube over the transom bracket. One on the port side of the trim carriage for the steering shaft (put lots in here). One under the carb on the shift linkage. Wipe the steering cable ram off and grease the part that goes through the tilt tube.

Pull both plugs and drain the gearcase. Look for water (milky oil), or metal chunks. Refill from the bottom hole with HPF-XR lube if it's not electric shift. If electric shift use Premium blend gear lube. Make sure the plug with the magnet goes in the bottom plug.

Disconnect the fuel line. Open up the fuel filter. Dump out the fuel and clean the filter. Loosen a plug in the bowl of each carb and let the gas drain out. You probably won't be able to catch it in a container, so stuff some paper towels in there to sop up as much as you can. If the motor is not VRO oil injected, you can run it out of gas and skip this step. It's not good to run a VRO engine out of gas though.

Pull each spark plug out and squirt some more fogging oil in each cylinder.

Go up under the dash of the boat. Pull the small tube off the speedometer. Blow through the tube to clear any water that might freeze in the tube. Leave the tube off so the speedometer can drain if it has moisture in it.

Pull the drain plug out of the boat. Tie it to the steering wheel or throttle so you won't forget to put it back in.

Clean out the boat, wash and wax the fiberglass. Vacuum things out nice. Unplug the fishfinder and bring it indoors. Wrap up the ropes nice. Top off the VRO oil tank to prevent condensation.

Dissasemble and grease the trailer wheel bearings. If more than a couple years old, consider replacing the bearings and races. A bearing failure on the road is no fun.

Trim the motor all the way down. Remove the battery from the boat. Put a battery maintainer on it for the winter to keep it from becoming discharged.

Cover the boat. If stored outside, you might want to consider moth balls and mouse poison. Rodents will really ruin your day.

All the supplies mentioned can be had an Evinrude/Johnson dealer. I usually use E/J parts, but Andy has good aftermarket supplies on this site."
 
This motor would be a 1971 or

This motor would be a 1971 or 72. The motor will drain itself.You can run a fogging / storage oil thru it as you run the fuel out of the carburetors. Make sure there is no water in the lower unit and make sure there is no fuel sitting in the carburetors over the winter.Nothing much to it.
 
"These posts pretty well sum i

"These posts pretty well sum it up...Just a few additional thoughts...If you are going to do the water pump next spring, consider doing it now instead...there is less chance that the driveshaft will be frozen inside the crankshaft if you don't let it sit over the winter. As to removing the battery...you can leave it in the boat as long as you keep it charged...charged batteries will not freeze under most conditions...dead batteries certainly will...This may not be true in very cold climates. Another thing that I like to do is to spin the motor over either manually or with the electric starter a few times during the winter. This means only one or two revolutions. This moves all the parts including the water pump to a new position. On a four stroke, it also moves the entire valve train to a new position.All of this might be overkill but I do it anyway. While you are at it, activate the steering and the tilt/trim...As to the rodent advice...I have had racoons eat the upholstery on two occasions...I don't know how effective mothballs are...we even bought fox urine and that didn't do it...we now just remove the upholstery for the winter. The mice made nests under the covers of two outboards that were stored in our shed. They chewed the wires and made a general mess. Finally, as Ikia said, check the lower unit lubricant for signs or water. It is a good time to change the gear oil...water will freeze and crack the lower unit causing expensive damage."
 
"Thanks very much for all the

"Thanks very much for all the useful advice. I found this website this summer and was impressed by the information, and I really appreciate your responses to my post.

Thanks again."
 
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