Marine Engine Lay-Up: A Step-By-Step Guide to Decommissioning, Inboards, Stern Drives and Outboard Motors

Do you want to do your own work on your marine engine?

Do you want to save money on maintenance that you could otherwise spend on marine fuel and beer?

The good news is that any reasonably competent Do-It-Yourself wrench bender can winterize an outboard motor, sterndrive, or inboard marine engine. And a DIYer can work on the carburetor, lower unit and do tuneups. This book tells you how. As a bonus to explaining how to do a professional-grade winter lay-up, this book also details how to Service, Diagnose, and Repair Marine Engines of all propulsion types. Coverage includes information on:

• Spring commissioning procedures

• Tuning an outboard, inboard, or sterndrive.

• Rebuilding a carburetor

• Servicing an outboard motor's water pump

• Surveying a marine engine

• How Reverse Osmosis water maker can kill an inboard.

• The mysteries of skeg and anti-ventilation plates.

• How to maximize starting battery life.

• How to stabilize fuel to prevent gummed up carburetor.

• How to tell if there's water in the gas in seconds and without tools.

• Why it's important to keep maintenance records.

• On whether or not you need to dose fuel with an octane booster.

• Why crankcase oil should be changed warm.

• How to determine whether an engine is overheating with a splash of water.

• How to interpret lower unit health by smelling and rubbing a splash of drained gear case oil between your fingers.

Besides the practical knowledge, this title features a special section replete with forms to record work completed.

Be advised that this is not a shop manual, so in other words, it is not a Chilton or Clymer style manual. But instead, its marine mechanic workbench notes relate how any reasonably competent Do-It-Yourselfer can accomplish otherwise expensive procedures on his own, saving money and gaining knowledge in the process.

Soon it will be time to lay up your boat for the winter. This year save money and have the satisfaction of winterizing the marine engine yourself. Click the Buy Now button at the top of this page and learn all about it.

The author is a factory-trained marine mechanic and service manager who, as a contributing editor, wrote about marine engine technology and repairs for Motor Boating magazine for three decades as well as contributing stories to Popular Mechanics, and various Boating and Yachting magazines in the US, Australia, Singapore and Brazil. He has plied the trade in the Caribbean, Iowa, Arizona and California.