'97 GS Lost Bolts?

[mike2587]

Hello,

We currently own (family) a 1997 Sea-Doo GS (720 cc) jet ski which has been having some problems on and off all summer, mainly due to family members not watching out who is using it... Anyway, the jet ski was running fine for awhile and then all of a sudden one day it apparently died out in the middle of the lake on one of my cousins and he needed to be towed back in. I opened it up a few days later and saw that the entire airbox, including the air filter was just sitting on top of the carb, not bolted onto it with the six allen bolts! Not really sure how this happened, but I do know that we only had 3 of them to begin with. Either way, I would see it pretty hard for those three bolts to just vibrate loose, but who knows...

The problem i'm encountering is that I was only able to find 1 of the 3 bolts that hold that airbox on the carb housing and can't find the other two anywhere. I checked under the motor as well as rocked the jet ski while it was on the water to see if they would come out from somewhere. My question is, what, if possible, damage could be done if those two screws fell down the carb? Secondly, we noticed when trying to start it, it's got a slight high pitched sound coming from it that just doesn't seem normal. I thought about taking off the carb to see if the screws were in there, but wanted to know what's the best way to go at troubleshooting this? Also, if the screws did fall down there, where could they have ended up?

Any thoughts?

Thanks.

Mike

 

[JoeZ]

If the screws did happen to fall in, you'd hear a grinding sound as the engine at them. Then you'd hear the engine get sick to its stomach from what it ate, and would hopefully pass it through the exhaust.

Lets hope it wasn't that, because you'd definately need a rebuild. Check the carbs, pull the head, look for damage. If none, then the sound may be something else, or something that was always there but you never noticed until now.