Newbie with first jet boat. Stripped drive shaft

[Mike Roberts]

Hi, I am a new owner of a 1998 speedster, bought it from a friend, put about 25 hours on it so far, man let me tell you what a freaking blast, I don't think I will ever own a prop driven boat again , I love this boat. My problem is the right engine drive shaft stripped the splines at the engine,, the drive shaft part is stripped ,,, already took it apart , my question is should I replace the pto flywheel also . It feels fine but when I put the good side of the shaft in the pto flywheel ( the end that was connected to the impeller ) just to see how it feels. It has a little play in it when moving it slightly back and fourth,, and also how do I lock the motor in order to unscrew the pto flywheel from the crank ,,????

 

[El Toro 33809]

If the drive shaft is stripped, the PTO is probably damaged and should be replaced too. I have not had success removing a PTO myself, but have read that people remove a spark plug, put about a foot of cotton rope in the cylinder (leave some out of the engine for removal). This will hold the crank without doing damage. Many times the PTO will have to be heated.

Do you have a shop manual?

 

[Murph_13]

I'm with El Toro, I would replace the PTO/flywheel while you're in there, most likely it's been damaged as well.

I've used the rope method and it works great. It's been quite a while since I've had to do this type of repair (I too stripped a driveshaft), but I'm pretty certain that I needed more than a foot of cotton rope, I'm thinking you'll probably want 2-3' of cotton rope. You'll need the spline tool for removing and replacing the PTO/Flywheel (also needed when removing an impeller from the impeller shaft/pump asy.) and you may want to add a section of pipe to a breaker bar to give you more leverage when breaking the PTO/flywheel loose from the crank.

If you don't want to go the cotton rope route, I believe a special tool is needed along with some disassembly of the magneto side of the motor to allow use of the special tool to hold the motor. I opted to try the easier rope method and again it worked great.

Good luck with your repair.