Winterizing a 4 Stroke

I bought a Johnson 15 HP 4 stroke this spring and now it is getting close to time to winterize it. What exactly do I need to do? I've never winterized a motor before.

Do you have the Owner Manual with the engine?

No manual, the previous owner misplaced it somewhere in his recent move.

Check with a Johnson dealer for full details but here are the basicis.

Put a good stabalizer in the fuel, and attach it to the engine, run it until you have put it through the engine for a little while (15 min or so). Fog the engine with the proper fogging agent sprayed through the intake usually while running. Drain and replace the lower unit lube. Disconnect the battery while stored.

A dealer can get you what you need and give you details also.

Thanks, that helps a lot. I live in a fairly small town and there aren't any dealers around for a couple of hours. Is the fogger something I could find at an autoparts store?

you should be able to. Ask or look for engine storage spray. It can be used with both 2 strokes and 4 strokes. Just take off the cover on the motor and get access to the carbs and then spray it directly into the carb while the motor is running until it stalls out the motor. It will make the motor smoke like crazy, but that normal. Also, when you fire it up in the spring it will smoke alot, but that's expected

You probably won't find it at autozone, maybe a Napa, but if not order it online.

Good advice on all the above, my dealer said to remove the spark plugs and shoot a couple squirts of oil in each cylinder, then put the plugs back. and then make sure you store the motor in the right position. Oil can drain back into the cylinders, which won't hurt anything, but makes for a harder start in the spring. I flush all the gas lines out with air and empty my tanks bone dry and air them out. Might be over kill not sure, old habit.

Follow up question: I ran all of my gas out of the tank and left it bone dry as well. I did not run any type of "engine storage spray" through it, however. Should I fill the gas tank back up and run it through for 15 minutes like you guys mentioned with something like that. It might be easier just to remove my spark plugs and shoot a couple squirts of oil into each cylinder.

(Note: I only ran the motor twice all summer.)

Thanks,
House

There's 2 schools of thought to how to deal with the gas tank for winterizing.

If the tank is permanently mounted, like below deck, then, you should leave it full of fuel .....use NON-ETHANOL FUEL for winter storage, along with some "Sta-Bil" added to it (use the red sta-bil for non-ethanol fuel, blue sta-bil is for ethanol fuel)

DO NOT put ethanol fuel in the tank if you don't plan to run for the next few months, ethanol fuel breaks down after a month or so, and if it gets any moisture in it, it will undergo a condition known as "phase separation"

Basically, what happens is the ethanol is hygroscopic, meaning that it attracts moisture. And since alcohol mixes easier with water than fuel does, the 2 layers separate, and you end up with a layer of high octane water on the bottom, and a layer of low octane fuel on the top, neither of which burns worth a **** in an engine. As the ethanol is where the octane comes from in ethanol fuel (in non-ethanol, it comes from methyl tributyl ether, or MTBE) you can see how if the ethanol mixes with water and falls out of solution with the fuel, you end up with the 2 different layers of crap.


However, if the tank is removable, go ahead and drain it, clean it out, and store it in the garage for the winter. Then you don't have to use stabilizer, and you start next season by topping that tank up with fresh fuel.

As far as fogging, basically, run the engine with the flush unit connected and water running (I know most people here probably know this, but it always bears repeating.....water on, engine on, engine off, water off, do not run an OBM without water, not even for a second, it can damage the vanes of the water pump impeller) Run it long enough to warm up, and run your stabilized fuel through it (if you are using a stabilizer) Then, spray the fogging oil directly into the butterfly of each carb, until the engine sputters, or cuts off. Once you do this, go ahead and pull the spark plugs, and spray a shot into each cylinder, then, put the plugs back in.

I run my boats all winter long, so, I usually don't fog my outboard or my jetboat engine. But, for my jet skis, I do go ahead and winterize them....but I still crank them up at least once every few weeks, and run them for a few minutes, just to burn old fuel out of the system, and get new fuel into it, and to keep the internal parts moving (I've had a few instances with jet skis in the past where I had to put a pipe wrench on the PTO to unseize the engine from internal rust to get it running the next season, so, I'm a little paranoid about that issue anymore)