IDoSeaDoo
Well-Known Member
reassembled the engine and did a rough alignment job by sticking the impeller tool into the PTO and eyeing it through the rear hole. With this, I realized that the back of the motor was way too far up, I took out the almost 1/4" of shims and it looked much better. Put the pump on and indeed, the motor felt a lot freer than with the shims. Compression was a perfect 150 on both cyls. I premixed a full tank of 50:1 and made sure my oil pump was spurting out plenty of juice at WOT. I drained all the old fuel and old oil, and made sure my low oil/fuel lights were working. They were perfectly! The trim gauge works, but it's out of calibration. It's consistent, but out of scale, the needle goes way below the low mark, and only half way when it's all the way up. I wonder if there's a fix for that...
Curious Note: While spinning over the oil pump with a drill, I did not get any oil coming out when the oil throttle lever was lined up with the tick mark for "idle". Only when I moved slightly past this did I get a little bit of oil coming out. The pump looks brand new, I 100% believe that someone had replaced it as it looks newer than the pump I got off my '97 SPX.
Anyway, I went to crank it and got this horrible clank after a second of cranking: as if the starter jammed up or something. This happened several times, and then the thing fired up. It ran good, sounded smooth and smoked some (I douced everything in two-stroke mineral oil on reassembly). The starter grind thing seemed to go away... for now at least.
Took it to the lake for the break in/maiden voyage and forgot my camera
It started after a little choke, but then idled all around the dock and up and down the channel 
I was so happy to finally be sitting on top of all that hard work as it was working for me. The carbs I put on it came off my SPX and there's a real bad bogging problem that I just can't figure out. After trying to run it at 20% throttle for a bit, started sneezing/backfiring and finally fouled out a plug. The MAG plug was wet. I'm not sure why it's doing that because the bog thing seems to get better when I pull the choke half way... Anyway, after a brief second of looking, it turns out the previous guy kept two fresh plugs in the dry box.They looked like they were gapped properly, so I put them in and it ran good again. Didn't have enough day light to go through much fuel, so it's only 1/2 way broken in. Don't think I'll have more time to finish it as I'm going on vacation, then to AZ for the rest of the summer. I MIGHT take this ski down there w/ me, but I'm not sure. It's a toss-up between my SPX and the XP (which is in worse cosmetic shape still).
Towards the end of the day, after the cool-down, I opened it maybe 50% to get past the bog, then was cycling between 30-40% throttle. It was unstable as hell because I still haven't put the intake grate on it. The previous owner left it off and I didn't have time to put it on. The ski was crazy, it didn't seem to know which side it wanted to be on, all it knew was that it didn't want to be perpendicular. I bet this goes away at speed, but I'm almost scared to take it there
The weird starter clank went away, and the motor seemed more loose at the end of the day. Only thing I noticed was some smoke under the seat. Probably didn't seal the exhaust pipe well enough... Oh well, not time to mess w/ it now. Anyway, I'll post pics of the freshly painted engine soon, and when I get to it, show you guys the restoration work. Happy Jet-Skiing to all!
Curious Note: While spinning over the oil pump with a drill, I did not get any oil coming out when the oil throttle lever was lined up with the tick mark for "idle". Only when I moved slightly past this did I get a little bit of oil coming out. The pump looks brand new, I 100% believe that someone had replaced it as it looks newer than the pump I got off my '97 SPX.
Anyway, I went to crank it and got this horrible clank after a second of cranking: as if the starter jammed up or something. This happened several times, and then the thing fired up. It ran good, sounded smooth and smoked some (I douced everything in two-stroke mineral oil on reassembly). The starter grind thing seemed to go away... for now at least.
Took it to the lake for the break in/maiden voyage and forgot my camera
It started after a little choke, but then idled all around the dock and up and down the channel I was so happy to finally be sitting on top of all that hard work as it was working for me. The carbs I put on it came off my SPX and there's a real bad bogging problem that I just can't figure out. After trying to run it at 20% throttle for a bit, started sneezing/backfiring and finally fouled out a plug. The MAG plug was wet. I'm not sure why it's doing that because the bog thing seems to get better when I pull the choke half way... Anyway, after a brief second of looking, it turns out the previous guy kept two fresh plugs in the dry box.They looked like they were gapped properly, so I put them in and it ran good again. Didn't have enough day light to go through much fuel, so it's only 1/2 way broken in. Don't think I'll have more time to finish it as I'm going on vacation, then to AZ for the rest of the summer. I MIGHT take this ski down there w/ me, but I'm not sure. It's a toss-up between my SPX and the XP (which is in worse cosmetic shape still). Towards the end of the day, after the cool-down, I opened it maybe 50% to get past the bog, then was cycling between 30-40% throttle. It was unstable as hell because I still haven't put the intake grate on it. The previous owner left it off and I didn't have time to put it on. The ski was crazy, it didn't seem to know which side it wanted to be on, all it knew was that it didn't want to be perpendicular. I bet this goes away at speed, but I'm almost scared to take it there
The weird starter clank went away, and the motor seemed more loose at the end of the day. Only thing I noticed was some smoke under the seat. Probably didn't seal the exhaust pipe well enough... Oh well, not time to mess w/ it now. Anyway, I'll post pics of the freshly painted engine soon, and when I get to it, show you guys the restoration work. Happy Jet-Skiing to all!
