I recently moved to a river town and decided to sell my motorcycle to buy my family a boat. After lengthy research I decided I wanted a jet boat and narrowed it down to a sea Doo. I was looking far and wide and finally found what I thought was a good buy: a 2002 utopia 185 with the merc 240. The boat has a wake tower/speakers, a recently replaced power head (40 hours) and 1 hour on a fully replaced jet drive (with receipts for the jet drive which they used their insurance to fix, to the tune of $3k). The boat spent some summers on a lift so the gel coat is cracked in a few places and the interior is not as nice as a couple boats I saw. I want reliability not show ability so I drove 5 hours one way to buy it. Asking was $9k and I paid $8200.
I noticed the battery was slightly slow to crank during the test run so I replaced the 27 size Napa battery in there with a 29 size for more capacity and cranking amps. The first time I used the boat was last Saturday and I burned half a tank and she ran very well except for the very end of the day (hour 3 of usage) when at part throttle. She hesitated and then regained power. I thought it was maybe just a fluke but 5 minutes later it did it again at 90% throttle, and almost killed the motor. After a second or two I revved it up again to 50% throttle and it again nesitated. I was getting very worried so brought it back to shore and loaded it up. I texted the seller asking how old the fuel was and he said "about a year old but I used stabil". This made me think maybe I had some water in the tank or the fuel was bad. I topped the tank off with fresh shell 93 (17 gallons worth) hoping the 93 would balance out the what was probably 84 octane in the tank from sitting so long. I also want to note it smokes considerably upon startup but no smoke once warmed up.
I launched the boat with fingers crossed that the fresh fuel would do it. I let her idle for about 3 minutes, then went to about 15% throttle for 3 minutes to get some heat in the block before I got on it. I increased from 15% throttle to maybe 30% and she fell HARD on her face and shut off. I restarted and couldn't give her more than 10% throttle or she would die. While idling back to dock I hit the bilge pump switch (which I've run the previous day without issue) and it killed the motor.
So....where do i start? I feel like I have a clogged injector, bad pump, fouled plugs or possibly water in the fuel. I also just read the article about the temp head sensors going bad and thought maybe that should be on the list too.
What's the easiest place to start from the above list? Anything else I should be considering based on the symptoms? Id rather not take it to a marina until I've troubleshot the basics so I dont have to fork over $120/hour for them to do the same.
Any help is appreciated!!!
I noticed the battery was slightly slow to crank during the test run so I replaced the 27 size Napa battery in there with a 29 size for more capacity and cranking amps. The first time I used the boat was last Saturday and I burned half a tank and she ran very well except for the very end of the day (hour 3 of usage) when at part throttle. She hesitated and then regained power. I thought it was maybe just a fluke but 5 minutes later it did it again at 90% throttle, and almost killed the motor. After a second or two I revved it up again to 50% throttle and it again nesitated. I was getting very worried so brought it back to shore and loaded it up. I texted the seller asking how old the fuel was and he said "about a year old but I used stabil". This made me think maybe I had some water in the tank or the fuel was bad. I topped the tank off with fresh shell 93 (17 gallons worth) hoping the 93 would balance out the what was probably 84 octane in the tank from sitting so long. I also want to note it smokes considerably upon startup but no smoke once warmed up.
I launched the boat with fingers crossed that the fresh fuel would do it. I let her idle for about 3 minutes, then went to about 15% throttle for 3 minutes to get some heat in the block before I got on it. I increased from 15% throttle to maybe 30% and she fell HARD on her face and shut off. I restarted and couldn't give her more than 10% throttle or she would die. While idling back to dock I hit the bilge pump switch (which I've run the previous day without issue) and it killed the motor.
So....where do i start? I feel like I have a clogged injector, bad pump, fouled plugs or possibly water in the fuel. I also just read the article about the temp head sensors going bad and thought maybe that should be on the list too.
What's the easiest place to start from the above list? Anything else I should be considering based on the symptoms? Id rather not take it to a marina until I've troubleshot the basics so I dont have to fork over $120/hour for them to do the same.
Any help is appreciated!!!
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