New Owner - 1997 Challenger 1800 - Slow moving Resto/Mod

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Teebsa

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I just picked up my first boat, a craigslist gem/turd 1997 Challenger 1800 with twin 787's. The boat is in ok condition for being 20 years old.
It's gonna need some work, but we got it cheap enough, hopefully it doesn't turn into a black hole.

It has the expected cosmetic issues (oxidized gel coats, faded upholstery, faded stickers, etc). I'm hoping to give the boat a transformation over the winter, right now, working on getting it mechanically sound.

The starboard motor wouldn't rev past 4.5k in the water. It seems to do just fine on the water hose. Just ordered the carb and rave rebuild kits, gonna start there and see what happens. We also had a hole in the starboard exhaust water jacket that was pumping a ton of water. We have that patched and ready to go back on.

Hoping to get her in the water this weekend, we'll see if time allows.

Anything else that's recommended to check out?
 
Welcome to the forum.

There are so many potential problems and issues that it would be impossible to give you an answer to "Anything else that's recommended to check out?"

Take the problems one at a time, get the manual (you can download it here for free). Spend the extra money for OEM parts, you will be time and money ahead in the long run.

Congratulations you have started your journey of becoming an amateur Sea Doo mechanic! Don't worry you have a lots of company here on the forum.

You will get more responses when you ask specific questions, there are many here ready and willing to help!:)
 
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Thanks Bo, I've already done quite a bit of reading on here and there is a ton of much appreciated info. Luckily, my good friend is pretty familiar with the 787's, so I should have the mechanical side handled. Here's a pic of the turd, not a huge fan of the green.


20170617_164540.jpg


Currently Working On:

Removed both windscreens, will paint black
Removed all green handles for the boat for painting silver
Rebuilding all 4 carbs
Rebuilding all 4 Raves
Patched hole in exhaust

Any idea on how to get the lateral handles by the helm off? They're horribly faded and need painting.
 
I actually like the green better than the red.

I don’t know if you are starting out on the right foot calling your boat the Turd… well right now I’m calling my boat a Piece of Sh*t; It’s a love, hate thing.

There are bolts that go through the hull where the handle attaches. I decided to leave them on and just use masking tape around the hull where they attach. The handle material is soft so it does not take much to chip them, I have painted them twice. I use Dupli-Color Wheel Coating (Silver) its great paint.

I would not paint the wind screens, they will chip. I would just use a power buffer.
 
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Lol....trade ya?

Right now, it's oxidated and doesn't run, so it's going by turd until I get it fixed....hehe.

It looks like I could access it through the speaker holes, but haven't dug that far into it yet. I'll have to look at the duplicolor, I was planning on krylon fusion, but wheel coating may be a little tougher.

The windscreens are pretty shot, the glue that holds them to the lid is showing through, so buffing won't help. Hopefully I won't have to repaint them too often.
 
Congrats on your boat, I love mine. Not to call you stoopid or any thing but a few things to note: never ever never never EVER hook the battery up backwards, use a boost box, jumper cables to a running car or charge the battery with out disconnecting the battery, you will kill your very expensive MPEM. Always use quality api-tc spec oil like xps, never outboard oil unless you need to run from pirates or something like that. Keep us posted with lots of fotos, seems to be alot of challenger 1800s showing up on this forum and everybody loves fotos:cheers:


PS: green is the way to go to:thumbsup:
 
I have the green 97 also....Ive put 2 new motors in it this year...thats a job!! I wanna do the upholstery but that seems to be a pricy job also...good luck and keep us updated.. I bought a compression tester to check motors.....good investment!
 
Thanks for the tips guys, they're appreciated. I've read about the MPEM horror storries, I'll make sure not to cross the terminals. I'm not sure what kind of oil they were using in it, once the tank is completely drained, I'll switch to quality synthetic. I'm wanting to redo the upholstery over winter, it is pricey, but found the DIY kits for about $500. I'll take lots of pics and hopefully someone will be able to learn from one of my impending mistakes....lol.

I'm really not a fan of the green, but after I paint the little trim pieces and buff the boat this weekend, we'll see if I like it enough to keep it. The green in the interior is gone though, can't stand it, wanting to go white with silver accents.

My buddy has a compression tester, I'll check just to see where I'm at. We got the RAVE valves all cleaned up, the starboard ones were beyond dirty and thinking that was the primary cause of the power/rev issues. They're nice and shiny now, just waiting on the new gaskets to get here for a water test. Ordered new latches for the glove and windscreens, they were locked and didn't have the key, so I just replaced them with non locking ones.

Here's a pic of the repaired exhaust, it should hold for awhile.

20170620_125701_1497981437493.jpg
 
Getting rid of the faded graphics (this is a huge PITA) using a combination of a hair dryer, plastic scraper and eraser wheel and it still sucks.

20170623_135615.jpg

The rear seats are in remarkably good condition, the fronts....not so much.

20170623_135635.jpg

The carbs and rave's out for cleaning.

20170623_135708.jpg
 
I think I may be missing my temp sensors.

From what I understand, they should be where the bronze plugs are correct?

20170628_203430.jpg

I also have this wire coming out of the MPEM box, but only one, don't see a 2nd anywhere. Is this the temp sensor wire?

20170628_203713.jpg
 
Got the boat in the water for the first time since putting everything back together. The starboard engine was getting a lot of cavitation and was sticking a little around 4500rpm. It did improve as the day went on. The idle was set a little lower on that side, so we adjusted it and hopefully that clears it out. The wear ring on that motor looks a little chewed up, so hopefully that's the cavitation issue. Overall, it ran good. GPS was at 42mph, but the lake was pretty busy and not the smoothest. We'll try again tomorrow and see how she does. So far, I'm pretty happy, we got a little wetter than we thought we would, but it was a lot of fun.
 
I'm going to chime in as one who likes the green as well. I've been down that painful road before of removing graphics, and it is no fun.

I guess I've decided that I just don't have enough aggravation in my life right now, so it looks like I'm in the market to bring some on. I'm looking at a 1996 Speedster, which should fit the bill quite well I suspect. There are some parts of this boat that have faded more than I thought was possible, but that's to be expected.

You say you got yours cheap enough. If you don't mind me being nosey, how much did you end up paying? If you would rather not say, that's fine, I'd just like to get some idea what these things are going for these days.

Good luck, and if I end up buying, I'm sure I'll be poking around this forum quite a bit.
 
I have no problem sharing. Only way to determine value. Hell, I may have got a horrible deal at $3800, but it seemed good enough.


I've repainted a couple of the faded pieces, we'll see how they hold up. We're in the process of removing the decals (which really sucks) and going to work on bringing back the shine to the hull. The exterior green has grown on me, it's the interior I'm not a fan of. That needs to be redone anyways.
 
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Teebsa said:
I have no problem sharing. Only way to determine value. Hell, I may have got a horrible deal at $3800, but it seemed good enough.


I've repainted a couple of the faded pieces, we'll see how they hold up. We're in the process of removing the decals (which really sucks) and going to work on bringing back the shine to the hull. The exterior green has grown on me, it's the interior I'm not a fan of. That needs to be redone anyways.
Click to expand...

Well I've been looking for quite a while, and judging from the pictures, I'd say you did very well. Thanks for the info, much appreciated.
 
We're still having issues with the starboard engine. Both engines will rev normally until they hit around 5k, the port engine revs up as it should, but the starboard "sticks" for lack of a better word. If I throttle it down then go full throttle quickly it'll get past it's hump.

Raves are clean, carbs freshly rebuilt. I'm thinking accelerator pump? I didn't rebuild them when we did the carbs. Any ideas?
 
Sounds like a pop off pressure issue. The spring has to release the valve so more fuel can enter the carburetor. The valve and spring could be binding in some way. Pull the carbs and make sure the pop pressure is right and working smoothly.

Anytime you remove the carburetors you have to redo the synchronization process. Page 06-04-10 in the (1999) shop manual

Accelerator pump will have nothing to do with the high speed fuel circuit.
 
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It could also be your fuel pump. The pump is driven by crankcase pressure. If the pump is not getting enough fuel to the carburetor loop, it could also affect how much fuel is getting to the carburetor. When you punch it, it could be allowing the pump to push more fuel.
 
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