Winterisation & Service

John 32i

John 32i

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What are the thoughts on winterisation....do it yourself, don't bother or part with a chunk of cash for someone else to do it?
I am based at SYH - a quick phone call has given a quote of £300 to winterise and another £300 to service when launched, which seems a lot!
Are there some corners to be cut...the boats new to me and I want to look after it...but don't want to pay silly money if its not necessary . The engines a Yanmar 3YM20 and I would appreciate any advice :encouragement:
 
Hi John,

If you're a bit mechanically minded and can do an oil and filter change on your car, following a bit of reading, you should have no problem laying up and recommissioning your marine engine. The operators manuals for the engine and gearbox should be clear on the requirements. If you don't have those it's worth getting them. Google is your first port of call.

For the required spares, don't go to a dealer. ASAP or Keyparts seem to offer much better prices, and it's good policy to keep a set of consumable parts on board (oil and fuel filter elements, raw water pump impellor, engine anode, alternator belt).

Doing your own routine servicing will stand you in good stead for managing the inevitable engine problems when they occur. Even if you're not (yet) mechanically minded, it's worthwhile signing up for a diesel engine maintenance course -at the prices you quote, it will soon pay back.
 
Agree with Peter.
I am not mechanically minded and I used to be scared just to look at the engine but got the manuals and now do it myself.

Took me quite a time at first as not used to engines but once achieved, got a great deal of satisfaction.
 
An easy solution if you are a newbie is to get an engineer to do the Winter layup whilst you watch and take notes. You then follow that procedure each Winter. I suspect that the recommissioning is simply putting the impeller back in or changing it come the Spring. Ask your engineer to tell you what will be required for Spring commissioning.
Diesel engine courses are handy for getting some practical experience. Also read your engine manual and familiarise yourself with all the part.
 
Thanks all, I should have said - I have done the diesel course and had boats for the last few years but have got away with minimal maintenance!!
Got a much newer boat now and its got to last a good few years...I don't have much spare time so was wondering if there were any shortcuts to winter layup with a view to having a full service around Easter (the boats 2007 and in great condition but I don't have the service record!).
 
I paid last time to have the fuel filters, oil filter and fan belt changed, well worth it, they're tricky things to get right and I have an old non-self bleed engine. I change the oil myself, that's relatively easy and the suction pump works whilst I'm doing other stuff.

The charges seem high though and goodness knows what they do to 'winterise' the engine - top up the coolant and drain the salt side or put coolant in that?. The service charge is £100 more than I paid.
 
John 32i said:
What are the thoughts on winterisation....do it yourself, don't bother or part with a chunk of cash for someone else to do it?
I am based at SYH - a quick phone call has given a quote of £300 to winterise and another £300 to service when launched, which seems a lot!
Are there some corners to be cut...the boats new to me and I want to look after it...but don't want to pay silly money if its not necessary . The engines a Yanmar 3YM20 and I would appreciate any advice :encouragement:
Click to expand...

Ouch! My Lancing Ford gets professionally done both ends of the season, and costs about £80 to lay up and £40 to recommission including oil, antifreeze etc...
 
Another solution is to split the service into two parts. This works really well and you don't have a mess of filters and oil all at the same time.
1. Change engine oil and oil filters at end of season. New oil with no contaminants in engine over winter. Drain freshwater from engine and replace with 50:50 antifreeze solution. Run engine with new oil and suck through loads of fresh water finishing off with a strong 50:50 antifreeze solution in the raw water side of the engine. Close engine seacock to keep fresh water in raw water side. Do NOT open raw water pump to replace impeller or you will lose your 50:50 fresh water solution.
Now this will keep your raw water side of the engine fresh, the antifreeze solution will clean your heat exchanger stack and the engine will benefit from the anti corrosive properties of antifreeze.
Engine laid up.

2. In the Spring you now need to change fuel filters, bleed engine and remove and replace the engine impeller which will be in good nick having sat in this 50:50 solution all winter. Easy peasy and you aren't trying to do the whole lot in one day.

Oh, and the little bit of 50:50 antifreeze that you have left at the end of season layup you pour down the loo and pump half it through. No worries about the loo or pipes freezing then.
 
Both changed after four years, almost no sign of particles. We have a non self bleed engine so changing them is a real pain and a half so immaterial whether we're tied up or out at sea, clean tank and fuel are prerequisites with an old engine, there's no get out of gaol free card
 
Ditto me. Every year for 20 years I have changed the oil and oil filter at the end of the season irrespective of use - the oil is still clean at the end of the season after 20 years! Gearbox every two years (so little it costs nothing really). I check the coolant at the end of the season and replace every 5 years - still spotless after 5 years. Check the heat exchange array every 5 years (thank God I don't have one of those Beta that require annual array check and anode!), flush through the raw water and add anti-freeze. Check belt, anything loose and lubricate any moving bits and check for any dripping of fluids. Top up the fuel to prevent condensation and finish off the fuel polishing before removing the batteries home to check water levels and float maintenance. At the start of each season change both primary and secondary filters - the CAV can look clean but it can be clogging with bug before you can see it. Bleed it of course but is pretty easy, change the first first and then on the secondary the new filter will get a half start of bleeding before sucking the air through. Replace new impeller (I have 17 perfect slightly used impellers in stock from 20 years!). Service done.
 
We don't winterise as we are in all year round and like to take a trip out in the cold crisp days.
We service our engine based on engine hours for the respective items. That way we are not spending out unnecessarily. What we all forget is that the number of hours the boat engine does is tiny when compared to the same engine in a car (or perhaps truck in our case!)
How many hours in a year do you do? If we do Holland and back plus travelling around there and bits and bobs the rest of the year, we'd be lucky if the engine did 50 hours. At, a road equivalent of 60mph would be 3000 miles. If you just coast hop or sail (rather than motorsail) a bit it will be a fraction of that.
The main cost for us is oil. 25 litre sump - yep 25!!
We always carry a couple of drums on board plus one empty one to put the old stuff in.
Also have two racor fuel filters and two others on the engine, oil filter, big fat impeller.
Then there's the generator...... <sigh>
So that's why we service at service intervals rather than annually.
 
The best training I have ever completed re boat ownership was the Tony Brookes course RYA engine maintenance held at the RHYC. Having completed the training I was confident to have a go at reversing the winter service I had watched Volspec complete. It all went ok and with further cycles of this I was happy to complete. We then changed boat and engine and the principles apply with sea water cooling being consistent for both engines.
This last season proved that being able to complete fuel filter changes whilst underway and in an emergency situation i.e. when the engine fails as you 1. Enter Dover East entrance 2. Just off Cherbourg 3. Just about to enter the Alderney Race. We had a dose of the bug and I changed the Raccor and Engine fine Filter 4 times in an attempt to get rid of the stuff. I ended up emptying the tanks and wiping out the tank and finally resulted in having the fuel polished in St Peter Port.
It really does help to know you can do these things as a get you home function as well as being part of a maintenance schedule to avoid heavy charges.
Routinely we change filters ready for the new season even if usage may not dictate - sometimes it is simply the peace of mind factor. The one filter I had overlooked up until last summer was the lift pun gauze filter which was where we were experiencing the fuel starvation issues from as the gunk was blocking that given the muppet previous owner had reversed the feed and return pipes from the fuel tank to the engine. No wonder all our filters were still clean and the lift pump was clogged. I hadn't clocked it and felt fairly inadequate however it took the Volspec engineer from St Sampsons a couple of hours to work it out too!
It is all a learning curve!
Re oil changes as has been mentioned by some I complete this as the boat goes to lay up for the winter so nice clean oil can sit in the engine. Again this is straightforward with a pump.
 
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Changing the first diesel filter may just be possible for us underway, though I really doubt it. The engine has no self bleed facility at all - it's a 30 minute job to bleed it and that's using the manual lift pump which involves lying sideways over the top of the engine. So we have a large glass water/fuel separator filter bowl that's easily seen, then we can see at a glance if we have a fuel issue; we have a rigorous approach to fuel filling with very strict rules about where we fill up where we don't; and we use Marine 16, two stroke and a splash of unleaded. Prevention is a lot easier in our case than cure!

Oil and filter once every two years based on usage, but changing to yearly now that she's coming out for the 7 winter months in Denmark :o . Check the impeller twice a year and change every three years - but that we can do underway. Change the fresh water coolant annually and include a Fleetguard cavitation and corrosion inhibitor.

One day sometime in the future it will be a new engine. It will be self bleed and spin on filters. A five minute job to do all three :D
 
On a 17hp Beta I change annually the coarse and fine fuel filters, the oil and oil filter, and the gearbox AT fluid. Every 2 years I change the air filter, check/clean the heat exchanger and change the antifreeze. I think Beta may now advise annually, or hours equivalent, for the h/e and I may go to that, though it never has much scale and I don’t acid clean it as some seem to. (If it’s not needed, it just exposes fresh metal and so consumes anodes – mine last 1-2 years.) The impellor is checked a couple of times a year - a Speedseal makes that easier. I carry spares for every maintenance item.

I have done the servicing for the 12 years we’ve had the boat, and the engine is now 21 years old and still runs sweetly - we did think it prudent to have the fuel injectors preventatively serviced a couple of years ago. I felt happy to do the servicing without a course, but Mrs H took (and enjoyed) a 1-day RYA course (and she has often helped with the servicing) so she has a basic knowledge of the engine in case it and I conk out together.
 
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