Winterising Your Engine

Subject: Re: Winterising the Hercules.
Date: Fri, 29 Sep 2000 22:02:27 -0500
From: Dave Rotigel 

At 09:00 PM 9/29/00 -0400, you wrote:
|Dear List,
|     Hello, Tommy here. With cold weather and winter coming soon, I'm 
| concerned about my Hercules and freeze cracks. If I were to winterise it, 
| should I leave the drain plug out or should I drain all of the water 
| possible, put the plug back in, and dump a quart or so of ethylene glycol 
| (anti- freeze) down the hopper? Should I do anything with the gas tank as 
| well? Thanks.
| 
|Sincerely,
|                                                                     Tommy 
| Stojanov


Hi Tommy,
         Drain the water (poke a screwdriver up the hole to make sure there 
is no "crud" blocking it) and then put the plug back in. Put a 1/2 qt. of 
anti-freeze in and then drain the water hopper again. Leave the plug out. 
Drain the gasoline out, or put "Stabil" (sp?) in the tank.
         You could also simply go with a 50/50 mix of water and anti-freeze 
in the hopper. Even with no water (ie coolant) in the hopper you will be OK 
running your Hercules for 10 to 15 minutes (or perhaps a lot longer) in the 
winter time. It's Hit and Miss and could probably be run for hours (at a 
temperature of 20-35 degrees with no damage done to it. Just lay your hand 
on the head from time to time and when it's too hot to keep your hand on 
it, shut the engine down.
         Dave