winterizing

D

DanR

501 Club
Several tractors need to be winterized. Your opinions about Seafoam and or MMO in the gas and oil.
 
I don't use anything. Of course our winters are not as severe as in colder climates. Low temps rarely get below 20-25 and usually not every night.

I like to clean things up, service battery, and note stuff I want fixed before next spring. When the spring work starts again, I change the oil and filter and grease everything.

Al
 
I fog us the stabil fogging spray , ours tractors are in a colder and wetter conditions than a standard garage.
Grease good put tires on wood etc.
Seem to go well
Phil
 
Don, concrete and dirt will pull the oils and moisture out of the rubber if left to sit for a period of time, drying them out. By setting them on wood, it does not.

There may be other reasons, but that is what my Grandpa told me when I asked as a boy.
 
Don as Dale mentioned, Ours are in a Friends barn on stone, pretty damp, get them out of the stone. If I had the jacks , I would block them up off the ground completely.
Hope this clarifies.
Phil
 
Dale Shaw":376749ti said:
Don, concrete and dirt will pull the oils and moisture out of the rubber if left to sit for a period of time, drying them out. By setting them on wood, it does not.

There may be other reasons, but that is what my Grandpa told me when I asked as a boy.
Click to expand...

I had a set of 2 year old Kuhmo tires on my jeep a few years back.... I let the jeep sit beside my house all winter in direct contact with the ground, by the time March rolled around the tires had all dry rotted.
 
gcbailey":10wm8t91 said:
Dale Shaw":10wm8t91 said:
Don, concrete and dirt will pull the oils and moisture out of the rubber if left to sit for a period of time, drying them out. By setting them on wood, it does not.

There may be other reasons, but that is what my Grandpa told me when I asked as a boy.
Click to expand...

I had a set of 2 year old Kuhmo tires on my jeep a few years back.... I let the jeep sit beside my house all winter in direct contact with the ground, by the time March rolled around the tires had all dry rotted.
Click to expand...

Must be a climate thing. We've never put anything on blocks or anything else and the tires have held up fine.

Al
 
That was my one and only set of Kuhmo's..... that particular winter we also had several snows of 18"+ at a time, so the tires were pretty well covered a lot. (don't know if that had anything to do, or just the face the tire was absorbing everything from the ground) The cracking was mostly on the sidewalls. When I went to get another set of tires the service guy there mentioned the same thing that Dale had mentioned.

As far as winterizing, this will be my first with the big cub... on all the cadets I've always ran a little extra seafoam mixed in the gas and shut off the fuel flow and let the carb run out the gas. All my stuff is stored inside, unheated, but never below 38F.
 
Don McCombs":3mn2vxmt said:
With tires, I think the sun is more of a factor than anything else.
Click to expand...

You ever noticed that the weather cracks are always worst at the bottom of the tire where is is on the ground :wink:
 
I use Sta-Bil, turn off the gas while the engines are running and let em go until they quit from fuel starvation. All the smaller outdoor stuff is stored in-doors. My Cubs are stored in-doors however it is on dirt. I agree with the observations on storing tractors on dirt/concrete/stone. Dad always had the Putt-Putt in the barn on wooden floors, Clorice has the Cub in a baby barn on a wooden floor and when it was in the garage the tires rested on plywood over concrete. Goal is to have the pole barn with a solid wood floor in time both to protect tires and save knees :D
 
I change the engine oil to fresh oil, change oil filter were applical and add seafoam to the crankcase oil and to the gas tank, then i let it run for a few minutes to charge the battery up, shut it off and top the tank with fresh high test gas. At this time the air cleaner is replaced and the tractor is greased and the tranny / hydraulic oils are checked were applical.

On my cub cadets i leave the batteries in them since there all new, but with my cubs i pull the batteries put them on blocks of wood and trickle charge them.

I use seafoam all summer anyway in everything just to lube the uppers in the air coolded engines and a little in my cubs too.

If in the middle of the winter we have a mild week with a warm up (january thaw) i may or may not start them up.

Since stabil messed up the 4 carbs on my streetbike i won't use it anymore.
 
One thing that I always recommend to folks is to NOT run out the gas, or even run it out of the carb. Matter of fact, I've just gotten into the habit of putting Stabil in my cans before I go to fill them up, so everything that I run has Stabil in it all of the time.

With the ethanol in the gas, and all of the plastic and rubber parts associated with the newer fuel systems and carburetor parts, the ethanol is very corrosive once it comes in contact with air and over time is allowed to oxidize and break down. It is better to keep the carb full so there are less parts exposed to air, and less oxidation surface area. I know that it is one of the biggest service items in our shop in the spring time, folks that ran the mowers completely dry, then when they went to start them in the spring, the carbs are all messed up.
 
Bill:

I still run the carbs dry because I do not buy fuel with ethanol in it. Shell has decided that they will not add ethanol to their fuel (makes me very happy and my 2000 DGC runs much better on real gas), so I do not have to worry about the side effects of using ethanol yet..... thankfully.
 
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