1996 Seadoo Challenger Adventure/Resto

Bshaw4377 · Mar 5, 2024

For the last two years, I've been lurking around this forum for random help and info. I figured it was time to join and show my story, my watercraft, and my adventures with it. I picked up my 96 SeaDoo Challenger back in August of 2022 for $3200, allegedly from the 2nd owner. A closure investigation showed the boat had been at a family lake house since its original purchase on Lake Erie. The people I bought it from only used it a handful of times and wanted to sell it before winter. So that story checked out lol. Also, the original trailer, cover, and bost itself had the original badge from the marina it was sold from. The significance of that is that my uncle's family owned that marina and sold this exact boat, so it came full circle.

I've been on jet boats since my first memories of being on a lake, this model specifically. My family also owned this same model back in the day when they were new.
Fast forward to 2022, she ran great the rest of that summer but with slight surging at the top end at 6400RPM and slow to plane out.

Bshaw4377 · Mar 5, 2024

Jump to last summer, first trip out, found the surging issue due to an original wear ring finally calling it quits and blew apart. Made that repair and she ran better than ever. Going into late July, a major rainstorm blew through and sunk the boat. My father and I recovered her and went to work on getting her back running to clear out the water from the engine. After a full can of WD40 and a set of spark plugs, she fired back up and ran like nothing ever happened. Fun Fact: this same thing happened to my dad when we owned a 96 SeaDoo Challenger back in the old days: automatic bilge pump failure...weird coincidence right?
Now we're just waiting to bring the boat back home from storage to get working on a small list of repairs and improvements to start another adventure this year.