My .02 cents worth.............I have the Mercury 3.5 long shaft with the cock valve. I too would use the valve to starve the engine of fuel before the long Winter storage. Unfortunately, this is not the best approach. Once you open up the cock vale in the Spring, all the crud that may have formed during the winter months within the old gas that sits in the tank, will find it's way to the very small jet orifices in the carb. How do I know this you ask?..........the same way I now know how to dismantle the fuel system and rebuilt the carb. Experience!!! Not to mention the hours of 'Upper Body' work out. I was sore for days from pulling on the D * * N rope!!! I would recommend running the tank dry and if possible, use the drain screw on the carb to drain the bowl, just to be sure!!! It will save you $$ on Ibuprofen in the Spring. Skip M-5.8 M-10 M-15 -----Original Message----- From: Hughston, Larry@DGS <Larry.Hughston@dgs.ca.gov> To: Ronald McNeil <ronaldwmcneil@yahoo.com>; For and about Montgomery Sailboats <montgomery_boats@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Thu, Oct 18, 2012 11:52 am Subject: Re: M_Boats: Yamaha 4hp or Mercury 3.5hp on M17 Ron, I have the Nissan 3.5, same as Mercury 3.5. When I run by OB in a tank or n the water there is a small valve on the left side that I turn to the "OFF" osition while running the engine. let the engine run until it dies from fuel starvation. That seems to work or me but I am no expert, just seemed like common sense IMHO. On the issue of extra fuel for longer voyages, there was a post several months go on the Mboats blog and I think the sender hooked up some clear tubing, an nline squeez bulb and more tubing to a 3 or 6 gallon tank. This was for oyages to Catalina island! This blogger had a 3.5 or 4 hp OB. Find these nstructions on MBoats for the details. Fair Winds....Larry Hughston M-15 Old 189 in Sacramento -----Original Message----- rom: montgomery_boats-bounces@mailman.xmission.com [mailto:montgomery_boats-bounces@mailman.xmission.com] n Behalf Of Ronald McNeil ent: Sunday, October 14, 2012 8:39 AM o: montgomery_boats@mailman.xmission.com; For and about Montgomery Sailboats ubject: Re: M_Boats: Yamaha 4hp or Mercury 3.5hp on M17 First I want to thank everyone for their feedback from when I originally posted his message in Sept. It’s been very helpful but I’m still not settled on my otor choice. I still really like the idea of going with the lighter Mercury 3.5 ut I have a couple concerns. ne concern I have is with adding fuel while on the water. For day outings it’s ot an issue since I will typically never run out of gas with the .3 gallon nternal tank, but when I go to the HPCC in February, I’m not sure how I will dd gas. I don’t want to be caught hanging over the back of my boat with a gas an and I especially don’t want to spill gas in the water. I know a lot of you ave similar motors with internal fuel tanks, so how do you deal with this? also know that the est way to avoid gumming up the carb and fuel jets when the boat is going to it for more than a couple days is to run it dry. With an external tank you can imply pull the fuel line off and let it run dry. Does anyone know if the ercury .5 has any kind of fuel value to accomplish the same? ________________________________ From: Ronald McNeil <ronaldwmcneil@yahoo.com> o: "montgomery_boats@mailman.xmission.com" <montgomery_boats@mailman.xmission.com> ent: Sunday, September 23, 2012 10:08 AM ubject: M_Boats: Yamaha 4hp or Mercury 3.5hp on M17 i, I have a new M17 on order and I’m now shopping for a motor. was planning to go with the Yamaha 4hp, but if I go with the Mercury 3.5 it ould only weigh 40lbs vs. 60lbs, which I like. My biggest concern I guess with ither of these is their ability to motor into a strong head wind. Does any have xperience motoring in stong wind with these or like size motors on an M17?