95 sea doo hx will not crank!!!! NEED HELP!!!

[**hxseadoo95**]

hey i have a 95 sea doo hx and havent got to ride it since ive owned it been about a year now first i had to replace the impeller and wear ring and went ahead and put on a manual trim replaced the battery and took it to the river and it wouldnt ever crank it was turning over fine then i didnt screw with it for a while and tried it again now it doesnt want to turn over (but if u take out the spark plugs it turns over fine) had the stater checked it was fine,spark plugs look good, and cleaned the diaphram really dont know where to go from here?????can any body help?????

 

[timmyboy76]

battery

thats a sign, of being weak. Should take carbs off and go thru them, since sitting for so long.

 

[johnson2_r]

check the batery make shure its fully charged for staters sounds like a dead batter check around in the forum i no i have seen many post about the same problem

 

[pyro]

Yup, I'm one of them with the same problem. See my thread here:
http://www.seadooforum.com/showthread.php?t=22148

Also another very relevant thread:
http://www.seadooforum.com/showthread.php?t=21977
Unfortunetly the solution to the last one is to buy three starter motors. That is not encouraging.

I just installed a new starter tonight which still did absolutely nothing. Take the plugs out and see how hard it is to turn over manually. I assume its like my 96 XP where there is a gray cover in the back covering the PTO flywheel. Remove that and you can spin the wheel by hand. Look at the first thread to see my estimate of how much force it takes to turn it over. Maybe we can compare...

Defiantly try a new battery as that's the most likely cause. I'm going to take my car battery and try it (will be the 4th battery I've tested).

 

[**hxseadoo95**]

well i checked the battery yesterday showing 14volts checked the plugs there getting fire carbs look good very clean no gunk took the head cover off nothing is locked up the pistons were a little gunked up cleaned them and put new o rings around the spark plug holes checked the exhuast thinking maybe it was stopped up took the muffler off cleaned it all the exhaust hoses didnt find anything checked the electrical box good connections and clean as it could be and the starter was bench tested working fine (on the bench test) but i did notice that when we were turning it over the power wires and the stator cover were getting hot didnt no if this was normal or not but im gonna try turning the flywheel tonight ill let you no what i come up with

 

[johnson2_r]

your engine could be hydro locked theres several different ways you can get water in the moter is there any way you think you could have water that came in through the carbs ?

 

[xpdale]

You mentioned that you changed out the impeller and wear ring.
Sometimes if they don't go back in just right the impeller will drag on the wear ring.
It will turn over with the plugs out but not with them in.
If you turn the shaft on the back of the motor by hand (w/the plugs out)you can feel resistance if that is the problem.
It happened to me.

 

[pyro]

xpdale: Can you attempt to explain how easy it should be to turn the engine over without the plugs in? I can turn my PTO around with one hand, but i have to grip it tight enough with my fingers with about the equivalent force that I would pick up a 10-15 pound weight by the fingertips. I'm thinking this is to much friction and that with the addition of piston compression loads down the engine to much where the starter isn't strong enough.

I'm going to check the exhaust to make sure its not plugged. I'm also working on removing the jet pump and drive shaft and I would estimate hxseadoo95 do the same. I'll let you know how it works out.

 

[gondveer]

I had the exact same problem with my 95 gts, so after a new batt. and bench testing the starter, which seem to work fine on the bench, I bought a new starter, it was pricy but it solved the problem.

 

[**hxseadoo95**]

Well I took the Impeller off after takin all connections down to bare metal the shaft is Turning easily tried to crank without the impeller on still did the same thing so I no it's not the problem but I am getting good turnovers ever now and then but it will only do it once then it's back to barely turning over

 

[pyro]

hxseadoo95: I spent all day on mine again today and I have the exact same thing you do. I took my jet pump out. The thing is defiantly not partially seized, it turns no problem. With it off, the engine still does the same thing. However today, I actually got it started! Three times. However it won't turn over every time. I would say every 5 times it will get going. And this is without the additional load of the impeller. It clunks (piston compressing), and then struggles for another second, clunks and then might start cranking.

One thing I learned was to leave your finger on that starter button even after it stalls. It seems to take a second and then will turn over one more time. Before today, I was not holding it down as I thought I was stressing the motor too much.

I am using somewhat cheap jumper cables from my car battery which gives me the best luck of all 4 batteries I've tried. I'm going to get heavier gauge cables (6 AWG) to see if that helps.

Again I have a cheap aftermarket starter bought on the internet but the result is the same as the OEM which I now believe is good. I would be very interested to know your result if you replace your starter motor. I would defiantly spring for the OEM motor to eliminate any doubts. That's where I am.

I'm starting to think its partially a design problem. The starter just is NOT big enough to turn this engine over easily. Once it gets started its ok, but the initial torque is just marginal. Any slight additional friction, load, etc just kills this thing. Even when I pore a tiny bit of gas down the cylinder its not strong enough to turn over any more. That's why i say to spring for the OEM motor as you need every tiny bit of torque you can get. I see these "high torque motors" on the internet that I wonder if they are really any better than the OEM.

Keep us up to date with your problem... Are you thinking of replacing your motor, or what next?

 

[**hxseadoo95**]

Mine has one the (high torque) starters on it to and I was thinking about getting a new oem starter for it cause I'm runnng out of ideas but I like your idea of putting bigger cables on it I might try that first Seeing how it would be cheaper and I just put anther battery on it got a higher aMp but so far haven't seen it help

 

[SRUSH]

have either of you checked your rotary timing?

 

[pyro]

hxseadoo95: Can you provide a link to the exact "high torque" starter you got? Is it one of those "Aqua Torque" I see on the internet. That was my next thing I was thinking of buying. But if you have that one, then I'll save the money.

I bought a cheap one from 14builders on ebay only because I wasn't completly convinced it was the starter and didn't want to shell out the money for the OEM when it might not work.

SRUSH: Can you explain why we should check the rotary timing? From what I understand that ony has to do with the timing of the spark plugs. Half the time I'm turning mine over, I don't even have the cables on the plugs.

Keep the suggestions coming...

 

[SRUSH]

The rotary timing is what allows the air flow from the cylinders if it is off you can't crank the motor with the plugs in because the exhaust can't leave the cylinder. There is a brass gear ot the rotary shaft that can strip nd throw your timing off

 

[SRUSH]

I had a problem very similar to this when I installed a new motor in my gsx this year

 

[pyro]

SUCCESS!!

I got 6AWG 12ft jumper cables and it turned over a little better from jumping from my car. It still stalled the first compression, but I would keep my finger on the starter and about 0.5 to 1 second later it would make it around and start turning over. With the thicker cables it turned over much more reliably however with hesistation each beginning. Still not good enough though.

Even when I got it turning over, I don't think there was any spark and therefore would not start. This I believe is because I was dragging the battery voltage down too much and the voltage wasn't high enough to get a spark.

So my dad insisted on me installing the battery properly inside the hull and then jump it from there. I was very reluctant to do this because its a major pain to get in way back there. But I did it and it fired up instantly! Like as easy as a car.

So in conclusion, MAKE SURE you have a good charged battery INSIDE the hull. Do not jump it from outside of the pwc with jumper cables. If needed, you can jump from the pwc battery to an outside battery, but make sure they are in parallel. Triple check all connections. File everything down and make sure all connections are shiny. ANY additional resistance will not allow enough voltage to get to the starter motor (or it will kill the spark if you get the thing turning over). FYI, I calculated that a 12ft 6AWG jumper cable will create a 0.89V drop (@160Amps starting current) which is quite a lot. The junk cables I was previously using was probably double that!

The starter now seems it has enough power to convince me it will start when I put the jet pump back on and drop it in the water.

Hopefully this helps out hxseadoo95. Let me know what happens when you do this.

 

[nester]

My XP did the exact same thing on the lake today. I had a fully charged battery when I went out this morning(because it was doing this yesterday), and after a couple times of coming into shore and stopping, it started refusing to crank. So have you guys came to the conclusion that is is solely the battery? I have a cheap everstart wal-mart battery in there right now, and am considering going and buying a good maintenance free unit. Is there any reason these batteries are losing power? Do we have charging issues? FYI: I have a spare 787 engine sitting in my shop and was thinking of swapping starters if the new battery wont solve the problem.

 

[pyro]

When you say its doing the same exact thing, make sure its the same thing in that:
1. Turns over with no problems with no plugs installed
2. Turns the crankshaft about 1/4 turn or to where the pistons are compressing.

This basically guarantees that the jet pump or engine is not partially seized. If its turning over with no plugs installed I think this adequately shows the starter motor is ok.

If so, then I would say its most likely the battery. It seems 90% of the problems on the forums here that I read, it turns out to be the battery. Try throwing your car battery (with car off) in parallel to the pwc battery. That should give you just a little more juice. Then get a new battery.

But as you get more desperate you could try changing the starter with the other one.

Batteries defiantly die over time and can't hold a charge as well and is defiantly the first thing to suspect.

 

[nester]

Thanks pyro. Yes the symptoms are exactly the same as you guys mentioned. It will spin over easily with the plugs out and I can turn the driveline with my hand, so that shows that my new wear ring install in the pump is not binding. I also suspected that the shims under the motor mounts may have been putting the engine out of adjustment with the pump, so I took the shims out of the front mount and lifted the engine up and down while spinning the starter, with no difference. The only reason I was doubting the battery is because it was brand new at the beginning of the season. But that sucker has done some major cranking since then, especially when my rotary valve went out and we were trying to diagnosis it. Im going to get a new battery this week, and replace my hot wire.