Are RAVE valve paddles plated with something?

[jimmaki]

I appears my RAVE valve are plated with something silver and the plating is blistering and coming off. Underneath the silver plating is black.

The one closest to the camera was cleaned with Gum Out carb cleaner and a brass brush. The other one was cleaned with EasyOff.




The over sided of the paddles with the grooves shows no signs of blistering or peeled plating although they do show a polished area that has been rubbing on the mating surface.

 

[racerxxx]

Yes, they are plated. Just not sure with what.

 

[suke]

Apparently gold, cause they cost a fortune to replace.

 

[LouDoo]

Apparently gold, cause tney cost a fortune to replace.

Good one!!! :thumbsup:

 

[jimmaki]

Yes, they are plated. Just not sure with what.

The silver part that was blistered (non adhering) I chipped off and it's very hard and brittle and non magnetic. I'm going to guess it's nickel/chrome. The black part underneath looks like aluminum when I scratch it (dull silver and not very hard). Now that I know it's a plating as opposed to say paint or some kind of powder coating, I'm also going to guess the plating is over aluminum. I get the heat dissipation benefits of aluminum coupled with the wear benefits of a chrome plating, but the plating looks too thin or wore too thin .... or the part just wasn't prepped correctly. The only other time I've seen chrome blister is on a steel car bumper that was rusting underneath or parts electroplated that used a base metal with silicone in it. Interesting part. I'm leaning toward replacing them. Don't think I want flecks of chrome dancing around in the combustion chamber which is possible with a tuned pipe exhaust system, plus because of the worn plating the paddles feel "sloppy" in their slots and the shaft is also not what I would call a good sliding fit in the housing.

 

[jimmaki]

Apparently gold, cause they cost a fortune to replace.

Yes, I see that. OSD wants over $200 for the rebuild kit, two paddles, green bellows and base gaskets. Wonder how the green bellows differ than the red ones I have.

And to think, when I started this project, all I planned to do was put in a new battery and clean the carbs. jeesh.

 

[gp1200x]

just for advice.....

Mine never did that and I used motorized wire brush tools to clean them every few years. I would replace them too if I were you. If I recall you need to see if you have a rebuilt engine because I remember that my craft had a rebuilt SBT (before it was rebuilt by PPG years ago) and they could not re-use the rave valves because they were not the same specs as the factory ones - SBT modified them slightly for use in their rebuilds. I don't recall the spec differences but there was a difference between mine and factory originals. My 951 was rebuilt back to factory specs and they returned the valves to me. When I compared them to the SBT ones I did a difference in the measurements but I no longer remember if it was the length or the angle of the cut. I also had a level 1 package done at the same time but I do not think that package requires any modifications to the rave valves. If you have an SBT rebuilt, I would contact them to see what they say.

 

[jimmaki]

I bought the Sea Doo new back in 98. It better not be a rebuilt. But thanks for the advice, appreciate it. I intend to replace the paddles with OEM ones. I keep hearing SBT uses non-oem parts, Chinese crank bearing, etc. Yet, many say they have SBT rebuilts that are running fine year after year. I dunno. PPG seems to be on the other end of the spectrum. If my goal was to go faster, I'd probably go that route.

 

[soccerdad]

I just put a set of SBT raves in a GTX. They look and fit nice. Time will tell how they hold up. They are considerably less expensive than OEM, although still pricey.