I bought a broken 2015 Sea-doo spark for a winter project (newbe)

[sanman68]

Hi,
I am new to this forum thanks to everyone for putting this together to help people. I just bought a 2015 Sea-Doo spark. My daughter had been bugging me for a while to get her a jet ski. We live about a 1/2 mile from a lake. Anyhow I told her over the winter we would look for something needing repairs and try to fix it for spring. A family friend bought this 2015 Sea-Doo Spark with 10 hours on it. They rode it for a short period of time and now it has no compression in the back 2 cylinders now. So i'm told at least. The engine looks like new and the jet ski looks great. I heard it cranking for about 1 second and it sounded like something major internal to the engine is broken(rod). I'm thinking hydro lock. No external damage thru the block. I don't plan on really digging into it till winter.

I want to get bore camera and manually turn the engine over with the camera in the spark plug hole to see if I can see any damage. What is the best/easiest way to turn the engine over by hand?

Any other advise? I did get a service manual.

Thanks
Sanman68

 

[sanman68]

The bore camera didn't come today but I did turn the engine over some by hand. It moves freely all the pistons are moving up and down, then it seems to hit something... I was thinking broken rod from hydrolock but now I'm thinking something else. I took of the valve cover and everything looks good. I will write more when I know it.

Sanman68

PS is anybody rebuilding these engines? It seems like everybody just swaps out their engine when they have problems rather than try to fix them. I know the shop rates would prohibit anybody paying to have it done but what about DIY.

 

[Ckrawiec]

Have you thought about sucking some oil out of the bottom of the engine to see if you find any metal down in there? A little suction pump from Harbor freight will get the job done, albeit slowly.

I sank my 2017 Spark (broke the hull something awful) last year but didn't have to rebuild it at all.....I just bought a new hull and swapped all the parts (engine, etc...into the new hull and she runs great today). I was simply amazed that not a drop of water was inside that engine...and she was bobbing nose up for at least an hour before I got her back to the dock and I didn't get to do the swap over into the new hull for a few months afterwards....

 

[sanman68]

What ever happened to the ski, happened before I got it. So I am just guessing till I take it apart.. I checked the oil and filter and they seemed fine. I used a bore scope and the middle bore looks good. There is diffidently something wrong internally with the engine, maybe bent rod or something locking up the water or oil pumps. Here is the video of the bore it looks really good.

 

[sanman68]

Here is a picture of a exhaust valve and I believe you can see part of the exhaust valve seat it broken off. This is in rearmost cylinder. I saw damage to the bore and the top of the piston. Most likely caused by a valve seat failure. I still have to tear the engine down but I already know I will probably need a cylinder bored or sleeved and a new piston. Plus my head will need to be repaired. The reason all of this is important is because I can get a used replacement engine for 1-2000$ depending.

Thanks for reading
Sanman68

 

[speed51133]

i would not repair that head. I would toss it and get another head. machining the seat out and then inserting an oversized seat (if even available) would cost way more, IMO...
Seadoo Sea Doo Spark ACE 900 HO Top End Cylinder head valves 420623877 | eBay

you may be able to get away by manually honing out the bore as well and just replacing the piston rings.

 

[sanman68]

right now I am trying to decide if I try to repair this engine or replace it. The cheapest-best way seems to be replacement but I will let you know. Obviously if I replace the engine I can sell of the good parts in this engine to recover some of the cost.

 

[cbrown06]

Any update?

 

[sanman68]

I bought a used engine and swapped them out. It runs great now. I do have a extra complete engine that I am trying to figure out what I'm going to do with it. I may rebuild it or keep it for parts. The engine I took out looks like new.