bad night on the lake! need advice.

[twentythreemx]

Alright I'll try to keep this short... recently bought a 96 hx and 95 XP. Both ran iffy. Changed out all fuel lines and cleaned carbs. XP is doing great. HX.. well tonight...i dont know.

Yesterday I had it out, plugs looked a little lean. Checked the oil cable adjusment, the alignment marks were a little off, on the LEAN side. So I put it where it should be, spot on. Rode it for about an hour and a half tonight, and it came to an abrupt stop. Tried to start, click click, wont turn over. Get towed back in. Pull the plugs. Both look lean. One looked very lean, the other not AS bad. The rear (pto?) plug was the worst, mag (front?) not as bad. Pic to follow.

I instantly thought top end, and that maybe the oil cable didnt get tightened and it came out of adjustment. Pulled airbox off, got my mirror out.. right where it was. Pulled plugs, tried to crank again... it turned over a little but very slow. Figured I'd pull the head off real quick. Cylinders look OK. It will turn over but it struggles.

What do I do? I have 2 concerns obviously... 1. What is wrong.. and 2. What caused it. Hate to fix it and have it happen again.

Could something be stuck or jammed somewhere? Could it be something w/ the drive shaft? Did it starve for oil? Crank bearings? sucking air (dont think thats it) I don't know where to start or what to do. I've done a little work on these things but not enough apparently. Anyone that can start me in the right direction, I would appreciate it. Or if anyone wants to come buy a nice non running HX, come get it. lol.

Looking back, I should have stopped and checked the plugs, but I figured it was richer than before and running decent.. to late now. Also... not sure what oil is in it. It was half full when I bought it. Was going to finish it through, rather than draining it and refilling, before switching over to xps. who knows what was in there. hopefully that didnt have anything to do with it.

Here's the plugs..

 

[twentythreemx]

also to note, those were new plugs, and prior to this the ski had just under 150 psi / cyl

 

[Strizzo]

Did you check the small lines from the pump to the intake? The ones on my gtx were rotted off and the pump was squirting onto the engine belly plate. That said, it looks like there is some oil on those plugs so it seems like you're getting some oil, if there was none being injected I would think oil around the plug threads would have been burned off.

Have you checked compression since this incident?

 

[donkey]

id pull the pump to see whether you are dealing with a pump,or an engine issue,,pull the pump,n see if it spins easily

 

[twentythreemx]

id pull the pump to see whether you are dealing with a pump,or an engine issue,,pull the pump,n see if it spins easily

never tore into that, whats invovled? thats for sure what i need to do though, figure out where the issue is.

strizzo - have not checked compression. when it turns over now, it will only crank over for a few seconds and then stop. you can tell its barley cranking at all. sometimes if you bump it, it wont crank at all.

 

[donkey]

its pretty easy,outside,at the jet outlet,
unbolt the steering cable(10mm bolt)
unbolt the trim shaft(10mm bolt)
remove the 4 bolts holding the pump,,not the bolts at the hull,u dont want to remove the pump extension.
since your ski has no carbon seal,and it has the bearing setup,u can just pull the pump out,with the shaft,,dont drop it!
watch for possible shims at studs,
at the pto,u might need to loosen up the small clamp for the rubber boot,to let the driveshaft slide out
now start spinning stuff n pinpoint the problem,engine or pump.
im havin trouble loadin piks,or i woulda put piks up for you.

 

[skewba98z28]

Sounds like you might have a pump issue. Usually on a lean seizure being fuel or oil once it stops abruptly it will turn over good again after the motor cools down.

 

[Strizzo]

take a look down the plug holes with a light, if it went lean or wasn't getting oiled the top of the piston will be dry with all sorts of shrapnel on top.

 

[twentythreemx]

the top of 1 piston and the head is a little rough looking on one side the other side is ok. will post a pic. no pieces of metal or anything so i dont know if i should be concerned with it or not.

also at first when it was hot, it wouldnt turn over at all. once i got it out of the water and on the trailer it did slowly turn over. even an hour after if i bumped the start button it would SOMETIMES turn over and sometimes not. so not sure about the top end.

 

[twentythreemx]

this is hard to tell, the flash also is making it look worse than it is IMO. In the pic the shiney-ness looks like metal flakes but its not, its like the head is kind of chewed up a little but i dont tihnk that would be related to this?

haven't got to the pump yet to check anything out there.

 

[twentythreemx]

its pretty easy,outside,at the jet outlet,
unbolt the steering cable(10mm bolt)
unbolt the trim shaft(10mm bolt)
remove the 4 bolts holding the pump,,not the bolts at the hull,u dont want to remove the pump extension.
since your ski has no carbon seal,and it has the bearing setup,u can just pull the pump out,with the shaft,,dont drop it!
watch for possible shims at studs,
at the pto,u might need to loosen up the small clamp for the rubber boot,to let the driveshaft slide out
now start spinning stuff n pinpoint the problem,engine or pump.
im havin trouble loadin piks,or i woulda put piks up for you.

I pulled the pump off, impeller turns ok. Shaft stayed in though.. pump slid off the shaft.. should the shaft have came out?

not sure what i need to do now.. I need to determine if its soemthing between the crank and the pump, because its obviously not the pump, or if its the bottom end of the motor.

Tried to follow manual I have but the pics suck. How do I get this shaft out? Its talking about the rear shaft having to slide a rubber boot and take out a oring or something.. I slid the boot around but didnt see anything to take off.

for the front shaft i have no clue. do I have to pull the tank out?

 

[twentythreemx]

ok got another update... started reading more threads of people posting about slow cranking motors, everyone mentioned battery/starter. I figured no way, it was running fine and just shut off. Then I remembered that my battery cables were real lose when I got back, so maybe it was?

So, with the pump still removed (shaft still in as it did not slide out), I decided to pull the head again and crank and see what happens. Everything was moving at what appeared to be normal. Put head back on, checked FRONT cylinder compression, 140 (was 145-150 ish when I bought it, only ran it a couple times, not sure why the loss there?)

REAR cylinder, 90 psi. Was also 145-150 ish. So I guess I found 1 issue, are there more? IDK.

So, what would have caused the rear to lose compression like that? I made sure the head is torqed down good, even pulled it and reseated it to be sure, read the same again. The photo i posted above of the head being a little chewed up is the rear.. so I guess that makes sense. What could have caused it. Would too lean eat up the head/top of cylinder like that?

Cylinder walls feel fine, cant feel any metal pieces or anything.

Tried to fire it up and it did fire and kind of run for a quick second... sounded kind of bad though. Dont want to do that again and make anything worse.

So not sure why it would barley crank before, maybe the battery was low, or maybe something was binding up w/ the drive shaft/pump (all the bolts were pretty lose maybe it was tweaked?).. it seems to spin OK, i can move pistons up/down by pressing on them.

now what? sorry for long post.

 

[donkey]

well.i read back thru these posts and i have to apologize. i now see that its the hx that you are workin on,so as far as the driveshaft system,i don't know.never even popped a cover off one.
so,when u had the head off,u didn't happen to rock the crank back n forth,past top dead center n check for piston movement(like slop caused by missing brgs on the wrist pins) i have 2 heads in my garage that look just like that,BOTH had bad wrist pin brgs/missing brgs, n both engines could be moved without piston movement.
also,both of those engines had ruined the rotary shaft brass gear.(the brgs got stuck between the case/port edge and the rotary valve)

 

[twentythreemx]

I just pulled the head not the cyilnders... I guess that will be the next step to see what happened.

could a lean condition have done that to the top of the piston/head? im just thinking ahead here, if I pull it apart and don't see anything, like the bearing destroyed, ring turned,pin fell out etc... then could it just be from being lean?

I really don't want to pull the crank out... and that's my concern... if I just have to buy a top end and put some new pistons in, I can deal with that.... but bottom end I don't want to touch it!! Just would be worried that theres pieces floating around in there..

 

[IDoSeaDoo]

Just read the entire thread and I must say, those plugs did not look right. They should be a shade of brown, and yours looked pretty grey/black. I had a plug look like that once, and it was because I accidentally installed a carb over the oil line, blocking all oil from getting to that cylinder. It appears that for whatever reason, your PTO cylinder was not being properly oiled, which is consistent with the plug color and the lowered compression. I bet if you pull that jug, you'll find that the rings are toast and the piston is scorched. It might be time for new pistons/rings, possibly a bore job and move to pre-mix...

 

[bell99man]

Oil has nothing to do with "lean," lack of fuel is lean. The plugs probably looked lean right when it happened but with all the retrys they got fuel/oil soaked. If that damage is on the exhaust side you have what looks like lean piston burn. The sholder holding the ring in burns away and pieces of the ring break out and pound against the head. I bet the bottom is full of metal. Look at the carbs and fuel delivery system. Sorry for your loss,

Kevin

 

[IDoSeaDoo]

It COULD have been caused by a lean condition, but judging from those plugs, I'd say it was lack of oil. I don't think the plugs could've changed to look like that after numerous restart attempts. Those plugs don't look lean to me, lean plugs are very light in color because a lean burn is a very HOT burn and it incinerates all the carbon built up on the plugs/head/pistons.

 

[IDoSeaDoo]

have you ever changed your oil filter?

 

[Robj]

I don't think that whatever caused your failure was oil or fuel related. Those plugs don't look lean to me andI don't think it was oil starved either. Hopefulky the Doc will chime in, I am sure he can figure it out.

 

[bell99man]

The pic I see looks pretty ashy to me but it's just a picture. Seadoo oil injection is very reliable but the fuel system is not, just my 2 cents worth. Pull the jugs and look at that piston. It's got to come off anyway.