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Engine exerciser
- Thread starter jimmaki
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Nike12000
Active Member
you give me $10 bucks a week I will come start your skis for ya and run for a few min then leave
CReynoldsMIZ
Well-Known Member
Dude. You are wayyyy over thinking this. I could get my ski ready to store for 10 years in about 20 minutes the way they say it in the book. No need to reinvent the wheel here. The tried and trued ways of winterizing will keep your ski in great shape. Fog after every ride takes maybe ten seconds of time.
jimmaki
Active Member
No doubt, but so far in 18 years, it hasn't happened here yet. People wait in line for the drive through window at many places, especially McDonalds at lunch time, when you can go inside and get your order a lot faster. It's more about convenience than saving time.
jimmaki
Active Member
you give me $10 bucks a week I will come start your skis for ya and run for a few min then leave
You could probably make a decent living on just this lake. I'll bet half the homeowners would take that deal. Add a tank topoff service and you could get rich. Private lake, no marinas so we all have to either trailer stuff to the gas station and fill them or lug gas in in portable caddies.
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I've got a friend who is a pilot that actually has TWO more take-offs than landings...and has lived to tell about it, lol!
Lake Sailor
Active Member
Not to belabor, but.... Takeoffs are optional, landings are not. There is always a landing of one kind or another 
CReynoldsMIZ
Well-Known Member
Yes but running your engine once a week is not giving you the same benefits as maintaining your craft for periods of non use like the book does. It's not really doing anything for you buy just running it
jimmaki
Active Member
Not only are you right, it probably hurts the engine to run it less often than once a day since that light oxide layer that forms after a day or so on unprotected metal microscopically grinds down mating surfaces until it is worn off and washed away. So I abandoned the idea of regular unattended startups and am heading toward getting preservative oil over the metal parts after the day's last ride. If I can derive some additional helpful benefits like getting water/bacteria laden gasohol out of the carbs, it will be so much the better. So thanks to you and all for all the good advice.
Now, when I figure out a way to do this that I'll actually religiously do, and I get it to work, I will tell all. What the book calls out ain't gonna happen here. There's a ton of things to do I get the feeling a lot of people skip based on failures reported here and elsewhere. Of course, I'm sure there are those that follow the maintenance steps to a "T" and are out riding and having fun. So I'm not dissin the book, just my level of discipline and where maintaining the seadoo comes on my priority list of many things to keep running.
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CReynoldsMIZ
Well-Known Member
Well it sounds like you are a very busy guy, and devising any scheme to do the maintainence for you just isn't going to work or will it be enough to keep your ski running correctly. So I will break it down for you in terms of ease and time spent to keep your engine going good.
1) Every time you go get gas, put stabil in the tank every time you add fresh gas. That will keep you from having gummed up carbs or having to ever drain your gas. That will take from the time you open the bottle to dumping it in the tank to putting it back in your car approximately 30 seconds.
2) Every time you put your skis away, FOG THE MOTOR. Take the can of fogging oil, stick it through the hole in the airbox that the engineers at seadoo have already put there for you to do this, start the motor and spray for about 15 seconds or until the motor sounds like it is about to die. Boom, your whole inside of your motor is coated with an oil far superior than anything else and no rust or nothing will form.
3) Disconnect the negative terminal on the battery. If you are handy with a Phillips head this should take about 20 seconds. This ensures your battery wont drain from the next start.
Aside from winterizing your ski, that is all the normal maintenance you need to do to keep your engine lasting a LONG time. So if you have approximately 1-2 minutes of free time, then this is your 100% best option. Your trying to overthink what the ENGINEERS have told you to do. The people who have great running skis on this forum, [MENTION=16022]Dr Honda[/MENTION], [MENTION=57920]racerxxx[/MENTION], [MENTION=41828]Minnetonka4me[/MENTION], [MENTION=51824]Matt Braley[/MENTION], they don't have them because they tried to overengineer what is the simplest of tasks. The book lays it out as simple as it can, anything you try and rig up (which im not even sure what one person could do to make an "automatic maintaining jet ski") is going to probably make your ski run worse, and 2, you are going to spend days (my option is minute(s) )if not longer trying to think of something to do here that isn't even necessary.
Sorry but I just don't see what your trying to do here
1) Every time you go get gas, put stabil in the tank every time you add fresh gas. That will keep you from having gummed up carbs or having to ever drain your gas. That will take from the time you open the bottle to dumping it in the tank to putting it back in your car approximately 30 seconds.
2) Every time you put your skis away, FOG THE MOTOR. Take the can of fogging oil, stick it through the hole in the airbox that the engineers at seadoo have already put there for you to do this, start the motor and spray for about 15 seconds or until the motor sounds like it is about to die. Boom, your whole inside of your motor is coated with an oil far superior than anything else and no rust or nothing will form.
3) Disconnect the negative terminal on the battery. If you are handy with a Phillips head this should take about 20 seconds. This ensures your battery wont drain from the next start.
Aside from winterizing your ski, that is all the normal maintenance you need to do to keep your engine lasting a LONG time. So if you have approximately 1-2 minutes of free time, then this is your 100% best option. Your trying to overthink what the ENGINEERS have told you to do. The people who have great running skis on this forum, [MENTION=16022]Dr Honda[/MENTION], [MENTION=57920]racerxxx[/MENTION], [MENTION=41828]Minnetonka4me[/MENTION], [MENTION=51824]Matt Braley[/MENTION], they don't have them because they tried to overengineer what is the simplest of tasks. The book lays it out as simple as it can, anything you try and rig up (which im not even sure what one person could do to make an "automatic maintaining jet ski") is going to probably make your ski run worse, and 2, you are going to spend days (my option is minute(s) )if not longer trying to think of something to do here that isn't even necessary.
Sorry but I just don't see what your trying to do here
jimmaki
Active Member
Thanks for the pointers. I put marine Stabil in all the gas cans for all the gas burners around here and have installed battery switches in the SeaDoos, boat, and lawn tractor. Not trying to engineer an "automatic maintaining jet ski" just a method of getting preservative oil in the engine that's simple and convenient enough to insure I'll use it, not overthinking what the engineers spec in the manual.
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Sportster-2001-951C-Stock
Well-Known Member
Not to belabor, but.... Takeoffs are optional, landings are not. There is always a landing of one kind or another
The key to a successful landing relies heavily but not exclusively on the approach, IMO. Via careful observation it appears unsuccessful landings tend to result from a compromised approach, in a majority of cases. Other phenomena independent of approach can occur as well, however, such as a runway that's already occupied, for instance. In this example, we might conclude the approach failed at the last moment.
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Sportster-2001-951C-Stock
Well-Known Member
jimmaki
Active Member
I often have more landings than takeoffs, especially in strong crosswinds. First I land the upwind wheel, then the downwind wheel, then the upwind wheel again, then the nose wheel if there is one, and then start again with the upwind wheel, etc., until it won't bounce anymore.
Lake Sailor
Active Member
well, any you can walk away from...
jimmaki
Active Member
Perhaps he wasn't a believer in fogging!?!?!
After completely tearing down and inspecting my 787 that was well maintained and fogged after each use for about the first two years, but not at all after that for 15 years with many long spells of dormancy ... all the crank bearings and wrist pin bearings were smooth and quiet and appear to be rust free and coated with oil. Perhaps residual from evaporated oil injected fuel?
The counterbalance gear oil seal appears to have failed and the bearing cage or its remains were nowhere to be found, balls fell out and the cb shaft flopped around and the gear ventilated the case. I can't tell if the seal or the bearing failed first.
I have no quantitative way to test or measure the bearings for wear due to normal use or wear due to iron oxide abrasion although the balls and races look free of pits to the naked eye. They rotate smoothly and quietly and there is no axial or radial play although they are not dry.
While I'm not saying fogging is not a good thing to do ... I just don't think it would have saved this engine from its demise.
Will I fog the new rebuilt engine? Sure, for at least for two years ... if I don't come up with a preservative oil rich fuel supply easily switched in with the fuel selector just prior to shutdown for the day. Which will also remind me to shut the fuel off which I hadn't been doing before. Never had a problem but if you read enough messages here you get paranoid.
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Sportster-2001-951C-Stock
Well-Known Member
Good idea to close the fuel valve. I intend on installing a fogging system of some sort b/c it's difficult climbing down into the bilge vs pushing a knob or plunger.
jimmaki
Active Member
And there you have it ... just install one of those aftermarket primer pumps and have it suck on a bottle of rust preventative oil and pump some oil into each carb throat.
96spxpos
Well-Known Member
[MENTION=43106]CReynoldsMIZ[/MENTION] I know you mentioned doing the normal fogging thru the plug in the airbox, and you say walah, all parts of the engine are coated... I do flush and fog after EVERY single ride, which is why my motor is still good to go after being flooded to the spark plugs with saltwater THREE times... but, although I DO fog into the airbox a little bit, I actually do the majority of my fogging each and every time by removing the sparkplugs and coating the cylinder walls, ensuring even the top end is coated with fogging oil. Are you saying that if I JUST do it as per the manual, down the airbox into the carbs until it almost dies, that doing that coats EVEN THE UPPER CYLINDERS of the motor up by the spark plugs? If so, I wont take my spark plugs out after EVERY ride.. I was just doing it for added security.
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