Electrical gremlins 98 GSX Limited

[plane_rc]

Hi,

I've recently purchased a 98 GSX limited from a private seller and after fixing a myriad of other problems I wasn't told of I've come to one which I need some help and advice with. I think it's best if I tell you what's happened and then give my take on the situation.

I've had this ski for only a couple of weeks (First jet-ski I've ever owned too) and previous owner was gracious enough to give me a new battery to put in as the old one was well and truely dying. He gave me a dry, vented motorcycle battery which I filled with acid, charged up and put it in and finally got her started after fixing other non-related problems. It has been working fine for the couple times i've taken it out until yesterday.

Went out for 2 runs, all was fine and running good. About 2 hours after second run when to start it to retrieve it and the entire electrical system was dead, couldn't even get the dash to come alive with the DESS cap on. It was late so left in the water at my mates and come to today to try and fix it. Take out the battery, the acid level was down but not alot, however it only had .14 Volts and wouldn't accept a charge, so the new battery was well and truly buggered. Got a new sealed lead acid, charged up and put it in, after alot of touble starting finally got it and took of for a run. After about 200m I open the throttle and it's still only at a fast idle, no acceleration at all and the engine is struggling. Additionally the dash is flashing on/off and doing the thing where all the LCD segments light up. As soon as I release the throttle it died. After this the entire electrical system was dead again, but battery still had 12.14 V in it.

Finally got it to the ramp and home and checked the fuses. Found both of the charging circuit protection fuses (1 in the High Volt box at the back and 1 on the MPEM in the front) which are meant to be 15A had 20A fuses in them. The fuse in the High Volt box, the plastic melted and fuse blown and the one on the MPEM was about to blow and had started melting. Replaced with 15A fuses and was able to start and run the engine out of water without hassle. However did notice that whilst engine was running the "12 V Low" warning was constantly on and dissappeared as soon as the engine stopped.

So from what I can tell there's a problem with possibly either the magneto or the charge regulator and this has caused an overamp and cooked the old battery. However at the same time I'm also thinking the magneto/charging system has no output and the 12V low warning is on because it's driving a spark from the battery only and this would account for the rough running and dying of the dash. What's your take on it? Any advice would be appreciated

Cheers, and sorry for the length of the post.

 

[seadoosnipe]

Great post...

Great post! I think many would tell you, I'm the king of "looong posts"..LOL

Yeah, sounds like your close to your answer. The charging circuit is your problem. It sounds like your rectifier. What you need to do is a voltage test on the battery while it's running. Replace your fuses, you should have a 5, 7.5 and 15 amp fuses. You should not up the size of the fuse because damage to the electrical system and mpem will occur.

From your description of the water level in the battery, it's receiving to much voltage. When you overcharge a battery, it will boil off the fluids and kill the battery. The low voltage warning pretty much means, your running off your battery, not your charging circuit. It will continue to run off the battery until there is low enough voltage to kill your ignition and gages. As power is being lost, you'll first notice it in trying to accelerate to higher RPM's, then all together, gages will blink and go out, engine dies.

So, check your charging system output at the battery while running on the trailer......But, you def have an electrical issue.

 

[plane_rc]

Another option for the problem?

Thanks mate, however I noticed you made the same contradiction I did. On the one hand you've got the charging system providing too much voltage and cooking the battery, on the other it's providing nothing and causing the electric system to run off the battery??

However I do pose, could this be the cause of the issue? I went to start it this morning and the dash came alive however the engine wouldn't crank at all (Batt was at 12.2 V so that's not the problem). I noticed connector #2 on the MPEM was loose so I pushed that back in and in the process fried the 15A protection fuse I'd replaced on the MPEM. Took the plug out and discovered there was water in the connections, could this have been shorting out certain circuits of the electrical system causing all my problems, or is there still an underlying, probably more expensive problem?

I'm waiting for the connections to dry out before I try another start and voltage test the battery whilst it's running, I'll let you know the results when I've done it.

Cheers

 

[plane_rc]

Engine Running Batt Test

Ok, it looks like the charging system could be the problem. With the engine running voltage is fluctuating between 6.5 - 10.5 V but is fairly steady at 8.5 - 9.5 V. At start Batt was 12.2 V and 11.7 V on stop, so it would appear no charging is happening and the entire system is being run off the batt. Any advice for what i can start checking before I give in and take it to a dealer?

Thanks

 

[plane_rc]

Add to that....just checked the 15A fuse in the high volt box at the back...about 5 min after running it's still extremely hot, it got so hot when running the entire plastic casing of the fuse has melted, yet the fuse hasn't blown. It looks like there's still somewhat a large current draw through it as well as it's sparking to the terminals when connecting or disconnecting the fuse. What could be causing this?

 

[Bills86e]

Mate, That 947 eats and breaks TEETH! They end up in Stator, and cause the
Havok in there. Hope you can get in there and vaccumn it all out!

 

[hermie]

my buddy 1998 gtx limited had same problem but sometimes the 5 amp would blow and the 15 amp but usually the 5 amp. It was metal shavings from the starter and flywheel shorting out the stator. You can check by unhooking the stator plug at the stator and replace fuse and see if it blows.... if not most likely shavings. Its a pain to do and didn't cost anything so we pulled the stator cover and blow all the shavings out and put it back together and was fine the rest of the season.

 

[plane_rc]

Hmmm, Might have to get in there and check it out I think. Now from what I can tell I'm going to have to remove the tuned pipe head to get in there. I've got the shop manual, anything special I should know about with removal or re-installation of the head or is it just bolt off, bolt on?

 

[hermie]

the pipe the exhaust manifold bolts suk, had to grind a box wrench thin but still barely had room to turn it. have to unbolt the front mount and lift the motor a little to get the front cover off. and if you drop anything in this ski its a pain to get too and a magnet don't work with SS.

 

[ski-d00]

you don't have to take the pipe off, just take the mag side black plastic air feed tube off and you can get right to it, takes 10 seconds, just carefully pop it off the grommet by pushing down, it will come right out.

if you don't have the proper seadoo wrench for tightening the pipe nut, just unbolt the carbs and let them hang, then plenty of room to tighten the nut and torque properly.

 

[plane_rc]

Finally got around to pulling the stator cover off, and after much frustration finally got in there and to my disappointment there wasn't much crap in there except for a bit of very fine metallic dust. However I also found that it looks like one of the phases of the stator has burned out, it smells and looks burnt. However all phases are still within resistnce specs and none of them seem to be grounded, so it should still work right?

Anyway I'm going to get a replacement stator and put that in hoping that will be the fix, but I would like to know what could've cause the first one to burn out to stop it happening again? It did look like a bit of corrosion inside the cover, if water got in there could that have caused it? although it was dry when I opened it.

Also given the awkwardness of some of the bolts (especially the tuned pipe head nut underneath) any tips on getting in there to torque them correctly?

 

[Jetnicolaus]

,,very fine metallic dust"

Hi I'm new in this forum .
I can this trouble a lot better than english
This metallic shatters ar from bendix.
Such failures are frequent and I have remade inertia in (to) coupler bendix .
It does not delete exchange reason stator.
Damage can be repeated very fastly.

I think, that there is project defect balance dessert plate

I have made new as on drawing (measurements to millimeters)







Now is correctly work.

 

[seadoosnipe]

Doesn't make sense...

Finally got around to pulling the stator cover off, and after much frustration finally got in there and to my disappointment there wasn't much crap in there except for a bit of very fine metallic dust. However I also found that it looks like one of the phases of the stator has burned out, it smells and looks burnt. However all phases are still within resistnce specs and none of them seem to be grounded, so it should still work right?

Anyway I'm going to get a replacement stator and put that in hoping that will be the fix, but I would like to know what could've cause the first one to burn out to stop it happening again? It did look like a bit of corrosion inside the cover, if water got in there could that have caused it? although it was dry when I opened it.

Also given the awkwardness of some of the bolts (especially the tuned pipe head nut underneath) any tips on getting in there to torque them correctly?

Yeah, if you got one phase burned out, you can sure smell it. But, what I'm not gettin here is you said it tests out o.k.. Let me go over this real quick, see that your tests are accurate, if you don't mind.

Now that you have your mag cover off, you can see your yellow wires. So, it's easy to test without the wiring harness. I'd also recommend, mark the position of those wires in conjunction to your plug. That way, if you ever want to test again, you'll be able to put the probe to the pins because you'll know which ones were yellow.

Use your multi meter and set it for resistance. Touch both probes to yellow wires (seperated of course, not touching each other). You should get a reading of 0.1-1.0 ohm's. Now, swap to that third wire that you did not test and do it the same. So, now you see between those three yellow wires, you should be coming up with the same ohms on all 3 phases.

Now, on this test, take the red probe to yellow and black probe to the metal area of your stator or metal mounting bracket for ground. There should be no continuity between any of these coiled wires and ground. You should have an infinite reading.

I find it hard that you could see and smell a burnt phase and get a good test. It sounds that you've obviously had a grounding. Check it out again......just to be sure.

I doubt you had water in it. Even then, water won't usually burn it out, unless you power up with the water in it. Usually, it will just ground and not work till it's dry. Then, it should work again.

I just pulled my magneto on my 787, reworking my engine. I found some metal shavings around my trigger coil. I don't have a problem with my charging circuit but I can see what bills86e means now about a build up of the shavings.

The shaings I see on my trigger coil are only about as thick as a sewing needle and about 1/4" in length. If these small pieces of metal come in contact with one of your three phases and ground, it would short it out. It would have to be pretty perfect because these phase coils are coated with an insulation type coating. It's a yellowish orange stuff.

Keep the thread updated, ... Curious as to what you come up with. I think Bill might have been right. You may have had shavings ground it out.:cheers:

 

[plane_rc]

Seadoosnipe, I can't blame you for wanting to double check, sounds like it's confused you as it has me. Test was conducted as described, got a reading of .8 Ohms on both and infinite readings on all phases to ground. I've attached a pic of the coil so you can see the burnt phase and the condition of the inside.

I've got a replacement (used) stator cover ass'y on order, any tips or tricks I should know of to get it all back together when I come to it? Also previous owner disabled the oil injection system and ran pre-mix, as I'll be getting a new oil pump, is it worth looking at getting that system going again?

Cheers

 

[Chester]

Whether it tests good or not, that stator in shot. Replace it.

Chester

 

[Jetnicolaus]

All mechanical damages of Stator and Cogged circle has start in Bendix.
Later electrical problems too.
Shatters from coupler + magnets of Flywheel = Stator damaged.

Check it !
You have Bendix under hand. It look in him.