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Idiot of the Day Award

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bigJake

bigJake

Well-Known Member
since it is always good to use stupid mistakes as learning experiences, I thought I would start a thread where we can share and hopefully learn from each others mistakes. And best of all maybe someone will have a suggestion on how to avoid the mistake in the first place.

So I'd like to nominate myself for today's Idiot of the Day Award. (although I did see a post earlier where someone lent their ski to their brother and their brother didn't put the plugs in and sank it so it could be a close race). Incidentally, before I get into my stupidity of the day - when I take my boat out of the water at the end of the season, I have a tag that I attach to the steering wheel that says "DRAIN PLUG REMOVED".

OK, so I go to fire up my skis today with the intention of testing the voltage regulators since I have a history of battery problems. I start with the '97 GSX with the battery I had to charge to get it started last week. I'll also mention I read an article last week about how when skis sit for a long time the MPEM will very slowly drain the battery so starting last week I decided I would disconnect the ground wire from battery when I won't be using them for a week or two.

As could be predicted I connected the ground on the '97 and it won't start, battery is dead so I put it on the charger and move to the '96 GSX.

I put a brand new battery in the '96 last week and it was starting instantly and running great last week when I left. I connect the ground wire to the battery, hi the start button and it cranks and cranks really strong. Start to scratch my head because I've never had a ski crank this strong and not start, I mean nothing at all.

Ok, I'm thinking it has to be spark or fuel. I check the fuel filter, its got some brown debris in it, so i give it a cleaning and the ski still just cranks but not fire. Next I pull the spark plugs, I'm not really good at knowing when they need replaced or not but I got 2 new one laying around so i stick them in. (I'll post pictures of the plugs I pulled out later just for input on how they look). Try again, ski still dont start. Ok, Now I'm thinking I've read thousands of posts on this forum I can figure this out. what next, I've got it. Pull the plug wires out of the boot and cut 1/4" off that will do it. I pull the wires out and they the ends look they have certainly seen better days, this has to be it. I cut the wires. Looks like some carbon buildup isnse the boots so I spray some liquid wrench in there and clean them out a bit. ( I didn't thing carb cleaner would be good for the rubber?) I stick the wire back in the boots reinstall on the plugs and the ski still don't start.

Now I'm to the point where I've done everything I can think of off the top of my head and I'll now have to consult the forum to see exactly how to determine if I am getting spark at the plugs and fuel to the carbs.

OK now the stupidity bell goes off. I'm standing there looking things over one last time and I see that I only connected the main ground wire, I left off the one that goes the the elec box in front of the battery. In my defense, the '97 ski only has one ground wire and the '96 ski has two but the lack of concentration cost me 90 minutes.

Connected the 2nd ground wire, ski fired right up and the good news is I was reading 13 volts at 5500RPM so my regulator is good.

Still waiting for the battery to charge on the other ski to test that one.

Anyway my question is this. After having done everything that I did (and assuming that I didnt forget to attach the 2nd ground wire), if the ski still did not start, what should have been my next steps to determine if I was getting proper spark and fuel delivery?

On my lawn tractor I would just pull the plug, connect the wire and turn the key to see if the plug sparks but I'm guessing that method wouldn't be appropriate on the ski.

So to be better prepared for next time, I'd appreciate some input, on first is what I did correct and what should have been my next steps if it still didn't start?

Thanks.
 
While filling up my 98 GSX with a gas can I tipped the tube to far down and it came off the can and fell inside the tube to the gas tank. I thought no problem I will just loosen the clamp and pull it out.....when I took the clamp off to remove the filler tube the gas can tube fell the rest of the way into the tank and is now floating around in the gas tank! I tried to fish it out but cant see inside so I am going to try and grab it when the tank gets low. Shouldnt hurt anything until then but I felt like a dip sh#@!
 
Couple weeks ago I took my skis out for the first time this year. My GSXL had just come from the shop and seemed to run fine, even started and ran on the trailer. Got it in the water, started it up and got half way through the 'no wake zone' before it died. Spent the next 15 minutes trying to get it to run and drained the battery in the first place. I was ready to call it a day until I thought to look at the fuel selector..... it was off! Needless to say, no one let me forget that mistake.
 
i posted on another thread about how last year my wife left the dock on her ski 5 minutes before me, i pull out turn the corner and some guy has a rope tied to her ski pulling her back to our dock. she said it just died. I finish towing her back to the dock. i get on her ski to check it out, look down and just shake my head. the wife is like "I didn't know what that knob was for". I only explained it to her 1000 times.

Have to admit I did a similiar think in my boat like the 3rd time I took it out and was still figuring it out. I shut the engine off out in the middle of the lake and we sit there a few minutes. I go to start the boat up again and absolutely nothing happens when I turn the key. After about 5 minutes I'm on the verge of a full fledge panic about what to do, we are like the only boat on the lake, when I look at the throttle and see that is like one notch out of neutral in the Forward position. Never felt so relieved.
 
I like this thread because I'm sure at some point in time or another everyone has done something idiotic. The one that I can recall is that year before last on my full size boat, a 21 foot Caravelle, I was has erratic starting problems that seemed to suddenly crop up. I replaced the battery, starter, switch, and did all kinds of diagnostic work. Sometimes it would turn over and sometimes nothing at all. After I finally got fed up with trying to fix it myself I took it to my boat mechanic. After about a day of work he determined that an electrical plug was partially unplugged. The reason why I didn't see it is because it was inside of some cosmetic piece of plastic. He plugged it in and she fired right up and has ran flawlessly ever since. Now I have an extra battery, starter, and switch.

As far as your question you can check for fire the same way as you would on your garden tractor.

Kyle
 
GatorGreg said:
Its even easier to let someone else hold the plug and wire to ground. If they drop it real quick then you know its good. :biggrinjester:
Click to expand...


LOL Good one. Been there done that but that's another idiot for a day story for another day...

Kyle
 
I have to dedicate this one to my dad. It's his side of the family that I get my brains from. I always thought about writing a book full of anectodotes (sp?) about my dad. So here is chapter 1.

My first car was a '71 Plymouth Fury. One night my dad comes home and he sees that I left the interior dome light on in the car so he does me a favor and goes to shut it out. He tells me about it the next morning, and says he couldn't get the lite to go out so he had to pull it out of the ceiling and disconnect the wire. I go down to the car to check it out and see that my dad busted the plastic tabs off the dome lite cover trying to get it off. I reconnect the wire and it works fine. I go back in the house and ask my dad "Hey dad, just wondering, when you got in my car to turn off the dome lite and it would not go off, did you have the door closed?" Of course he says "No, I didn't think of that". and now I got a busted dome lite. Here's your sign.
 
Recently on my ski boat I spent hours tracing a no start issue. It would crank but not fire up. Swapped battery (pain), went through all electrical connections. Prayed..cursed..you name it.......:banghead: Forgot to flip the man overboard switch to on. :svengo:

The next day went to take the family out. The first thing I did was switch the MOB switch on. Opened the rear/engine cover, turn on batterys, checked fluids, test fired and shut-off engeine, etc. :thumbsup: Lowered the lift and had to push boat out by hand (water level is down, we are in a drought). Went to fire up...no go. :banghead: After 5 mins of cursing..praying...wife nagging...kids screaming..floating down the canal further from the boat house. Found that my five year old (my Dennis the Menace clone) had been flipping on and off the switches, one of them was the bright red MOB switch. :cuss:

Seems that every time I was away from the wheel he snuck in and played boat driver. I never used the kill lanyard, but now that is the only way I remember to flip that switch every time.
 
Today I made the mistake to get on the 4-tec forum, something about what would you do if there was a fire on your SeaDoo. You can check it out.

Those guys are way to serious. LOL
 
Snapper Riding Mower VS Ford F150, Snapper loses

I'm cutting the grass on my riding mower and the pickup is parked along the edge of the driveway. I can cut all the grass except for like a 1" wide patch that I can't get cause the truck is in the way. Being too damn lazy to move the truck, I've already got the front of the tractor against the tire of the truck, I'm sure I can nudge the tractor forward 1" more and get the rest of the grass. Well to borrow a line from Ron White of Blue Collar Comedy - I was WRONG. Turns out the inertia of a F150 is greater than the tensile strength of the plastic hood of a Snapper tractor as indicated by the attached picture. The hood pops off the tractor and there's a bunch of little pieces of plastic laying everywhere. I finished cutting the yard without the hood on the tractor. Spent 2 hours of minor surgery on the hood to super glue the pieces back together and drill new mounting holes and a couple minutes to get my fingers unsuperglued together. I guess it would have been easier to move the truck afterall.

Why is it in the old superglue commercial that guy could put 1 drop of glue on his hard hat and instantly hang from an I-beam but the only material that I've ever found that super glue works that well on is my fingers?

The strange thing is that I glued the broken pieces back together and still had a piece left over. No idea where it came from. Kind of like whenever I work on my car, I put everything back together and always have 1 bolt leftover. I always figure, well it still runs so that bold couldn't have been that important. I got like a 5 pound bucket of leftover bolts in the garage. I figure someday I'll be driving down the road and the whole car will suddenly fall about into 1000 pieces.

Last month I was cutting the grass and saw a stone about the size of an egg in the yard. Considering the hundreds of things I've run over in the past I figured this little stone ain't a problem. Once again I was WRONG. Shattered the blade.

I'm starting to thing this tractor just ain't reliable and I should get a new one. :)


IMG_3026.jpg
 
I've never heard of a MOB switch. What does it do when flipped?

OH wait . is that the lanyard for the boat?
I called it the emergency shut off switch....AHHHHHH lights go off in my noggin
 
I went to go fishing outside(ocean) with a mate.Me, him and a mate of his.I went to get the bait and ice.He went to get the food and other crap.His mate got the job of putting the fuel in the boat.100litres is all the boat takes.We come back out to the bowser(boat is on the trailer)and the pump has gone to about 120litres.We could smell fuel.His mate had shoved the pump nozzle into the rod rolder that was beside the fuel tank cap.In his defence,it was above eye level but the bungs were out and fuel was running down the bloody road.He wondered where it was all coming from.We didn't go fishing that day.
 
Crisso,
Good thing no one lit up a smoke otherwise you would be fishing from the clouds forever.

How did you finally get the gas, smell and fumes out of the boat....interesting story.
 
Enjoyed reading this thread and learning from others mistakes more than learning from my own. I also did the leaving the ground to the electrical box off when reattaching the battery. To make it worse i was trying to start it after running the hose on it with the engine off. I was trying to check if it was waterlocked and all it would do was click and pop, but would not turn the engine. I thought i had just trashed the jetski i had bought just a couple weeks earlier. For newbees like me ( start engine, start water ) when done (stop water,stop engine ). Run engine no more than 5 minutes. Please correct me if i'm wrong.
 
Your answer:

Grease the Zerks also after rideing, this will oust any water and prevent rust oxidation.
True on the 580, as it has a carrier bearing with grease as a coolant. Engine can run ... basically a long time.
NOT TRUE on your XP as it has a drive bearing that is water cooled when the ski's arsce end is emmersed. Running it longer than a minute, will warp the Carbone seal ring from heat friction from no coolant. Do not run a long time on the hose thinking its being cooled....Its NOT!
On this ski, grease in the pto zerk keeps pressure on the ring, and water out of ski. Do NOT put grease on the ring, that will also make the ring fail.

Glad your are reading your ski's shop manual, It has great pictorals on maintaning the ski.

Bills86e
 
I worked for a marine mechanic one summer. Guy comes in with a brand new outboard. Sais he read the manual like 3 times and replaced everything (plugs, oil, took the carb off and had it rebuilt) He writes out a huge list of things that it might be and wants checked. I take it in the back, first thing i do is connect the lanyard for the the kill switch, engine fires right up. I catch him before he leaves and bring him into the shop. Ask him if he ever hooked up the lanyard he said no. He thought it was optional and used it to keep his sunglasses from falling off!
 
- BiRkS_ said:
I worked for a marine mechanic one summer. Guy comes in with a brand new outboard. Sais he read the manual like 3 times and replaced everything (plugs, oil, took the carb off and had it rebuilt) He writes out a huge list of things that it might be and wants checked. I take it in the back, first thing i do is connect the lanyard for the the kill switch, engine fires right up. I catch him before he leaves and bring him into the shop. Ask him if he ever hooked up the lanyard he said no. He thought it was optional and used it to keep his sunglasses from falling off!
Click to expand...

hey I remember that. In my defense they were prescription sunglasses. :)
 
Hey Guys

Yeah coulple days ago I felt like a right idiot. During the winter season I had my pump rebuilt on my GTX rfi. They post it back to me, So I stick it all back together nice and tight. Start it up seems fine but has the normal rattle. Phone an kak the shop out that rebuilt my pump. The tell me that they don't replace it as it is a waste of time. Cool fair enough.

So couple days ago give the ski a quick wash and once over as I was taking the family out for the weekend. Check by the pump and DAMN my wearing has been eaten up. I think these blady buggers didn't replace it like they supposed to. So jump on the phone, swore the mechanic, swore the manager hell I even swore at the owner telling him he is a rogue. Well they recon so sorry they will come to me and do it for me. They are 330km or 205 miles away. So next day 2 mechanics come unload the tools in my garage and they start stripping. So now I have taken the day off work cause Idon't trust these fools and am watching them. Whole time telling them that they musn't rip people off.

So time comes to take off the 4 bolts to remove the pump, Well this little mechanic couldn't get the bolts loose with his wrench, So I give him my power bar to loosen it. This little twerp says to me gees how did you tighten this, so big mouth me says well grow some f...en muscles and it will help but I used the same bar to tighten it with that I lent you to loosen with. So this little mechanic churps me " SIR do you know THAT you are only suppose to tighten the 4 bolts to 21nm torque and not use a power bar as it squashes the ring to much and then it buldges inside." Well I stood there mouth open and nothing to say.

I turned around and left the garage. Came back about 10 min later with 2 cases of beer for them and told them to shut the F... up or they won't leave here.

Well they enjoyed the beers and the shop never said anything to me so I suppose all is well.

Lesson Learnt: First check the blady manual before you do anything !!!
 
on my old yamaha 760, about 3 yrs ago, I pulled the battery to drop it in another ski, and put it back in the yami that morning, getting ready for a long river cruise about 120 miles planned for the day, group of 10 ski's, so , 7am I put the battery in, go to do a quick startup as I always do, and its dead, nothing, i literally spend an hour trying to figure out whats wrong, and eventually call the ride group leader and a couple of my close buddies and tell them, "i'm fked", "out for the day" go back inside all confused and watch a little TV, take a nap, have lunch, yada yada.
About noon I walk out to the garage to give my ski a dirty look and remembered that friggen yami's have that lock function where you have to press 1,1,1,1 to reset it after the fuse or battery is out...
lost out on a great ride due to dumbness...
 
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