Winterizing your engine

[philminotti]

I know this comes up periodically, and now is the appropriate time of year...

I have my aluminum FE in a run stand, but this question applies to all engines. If your engine isn't going to do anything for three to five months, how are folks preparing it?

I have new antifreeze and fancy-pants Joe Gibbs oil (supposed to stick to parts better), but what else?

Loosen all the rocker arms to decompress the valve springs? Then one has to reset the preload (in the case of hydraulics) or lash (in the case of solids) in the spring. Annoying, but is it really necessary? Also, non-essential removal of valve covers decreases the life of cork gaskets...they can only be re-compressed so many times before they start to leak. Trivial, yes, but a factor.

I have a couple of cans of fogging engine protectant that is used on big diesels for long term storage, but I'm not sure I want to spray it in my chambers.

In my case, I need to protect the motor from mice. I'm going to wrap it in plastic and surround it with mothballs...sort of a mouse force field, I hope.

Short of hermetically sealing it in an inert argon environment, I can't think of anything else. Maybe it's way overkill, but 5 years of assembly and many thousands of dollars, paranoia doesn't begin to describe my feelings about this motor!

phil