go2anderson2
Member
So, I purchased a 1998 Seadoo Challenger 1800 in Florida about a year ago, at the height of the pandemic. I figured it would be fun to take out the family. Long story short - I should have known never to buy a boat without driving it. Anyways, it ran a few times, but there was hesitation in one of the motors, and the 2nd motor idled rough. I figured I could figure out how to pull the carbs and fix. As it goes, the more I dug into the engine bay, the more issues I wanted to fix. Leaking drain plug, bad bilge pump, cracked bilge lines, blower motor fell out, leaking gas lines with rusty hose clamps, leaking oil tank, bad battery, you name it.
Well, my wife figured the boat was never going to run and we got ripped off. Perhaps we did get ripped off, but I was determined to get this thing fixed up and running properly. I'm an IT guy by trade, but I like tinkering and know how to use google and youtube to figure things out. So I dug into things 3 months ago and pulled all the carbs, and redid everything I could reach in the engine bay. I put in a battery switch since the battery seemed to always have a slow drain...I'm so happy I did that (although I should probably put in effort to figure out what is draining the battery anyways).
Thanks to this forum for the carb rebuild info. I purchased the shop manual, and parts book etc. And I got used to doing a hand-stand to work on anything in the engine bay. Which still sucks by the way!
Anyway, tonight was the first official "test run". I figured I'd still have some carb tuning in the water. Guess what?
IT RAN GREAT! No leak from the rear drain plug. Both engines idled like a baby at 1500 rpms. Took off like it should when I hit the throttle. Top speed with my wife was about 48 MPH. I feel soooo accomplished for someone who never opened a carb before. Now all 4 carbs are 100% right and redone from top to bottom. Perfect pop-off pressure. I even had got a healy coil kit, and put a couple of those on some stripped screws on the carb. One of the carbs had been messed with and the PTO carb didn't have the little accellerator pump on it...wrong jets in several places on the carbs...someone just screwed it up before or was lazy or didn't know what they were doing. I was surprised it ran before.
Anyways, whats left to do? Well, I do have a leak in the oil tank I need to fix. Gorilla glue didn't hold 100%, so I'm looking at some other epoxy products. Super irritating and tough to fix that oil tank but I've seen the videos and will take it off and get it done.
I also didn't touch any of the RAVE valves yet, but I understand that cleaning them is a good thing. I figured I'd get the engine running right before I tried to mess with those - I guess I am tackling the known issues first. The rave valves don't look too hard to work on from what I read, but I'm going to enjoy this thing for a bit first.
I'd like to take the rear end of the jets off and check out the wear rings, and add fresh oil to it. I should probably do that sooner than later given how this thing seems to have been treated in the past. I was afraid to dig into anything more until I knew I could get it running again. Any suggestions on most important next steps? BTW the previous owner removed the oil injection so its mixed gas now. There is still some oil going to the lower end as I understand there needs to be.
Anyways, my wife probably will never understand and/or appreciate all the work that went into all this, but I figured some of you might like to hear it and could understand what I went through. All the best guys!
PS: I saw an exact twin of my boat on facebook with a blown motor for fairly cheap, and I have half a mind to buy it and fix it since I'm so familiar with how most of this works now. Not sure I will do that, but I did give it some thought. That would involve putting in a whole new motor which sounds a bit overwhelming but I have confidence I could figure it out.
Well, my wife figured the boat was never going to run and we got ripped off. Perhaps we did get ripped off, but I was determined to get this thing fixed up and running properly. I'm an IT guy by trade, but I like tinkering and know how to use google and youtube to figure things out. So I dug into things 3 months ago and pulled all the carbs, and redid everything I could reach in the engine bay. I put in a battery switch since the battery seemed to always have a slow drain...I'm so happy I did that (although I should probably put in effort to figure out what is draining the battery anyways).
Thanks to this forum for the carb rebuild info. I purchased the shop manual, and parts book etc. And I got used to doing a hand-stand to work on anything in the engine bay. Which still sucks by the way!
Anyway, tonight was the first official "test run". I figured I'd still have some carb tuning in the water. Guess what?
IT RAN GREAT! No leak from the rear drain plug. Both engines idled like a baby at 1500 rpms. Took off like it should when I hit the throttle. Top speed with my wife was about 48 MPH. I feel soooo accomplished for someone who never opened a carb before. Now all 4 carbs are 100% right and redone from top to bottom. Perfect pop-off pressure. I even had got a healy coil kit, and put a couple of those on some stripped screws on the carb. One of the carbs had been messed with and the PTO carb didn't have the little accellerator pump on it...wrong jets in several places on the carbs...someone just screwed it up before or was lazy or didn't know what they were doing. I was surprised it ran before.
Anyways, whats left to do? Well, I do have a leak in the oil tank I need to fix. Gorilla glue didn't hold 100%, so I'm looking at some other epoxy products. Super irritating and tough to fix that oil tank but I've seen the videos and will take it off and get it done.
I also didn't touch any of the RAVE valves yet, but I understand that cleaning them is a good thing. I figured I'd get the engine running right before I tried to mess with those - I guess I am tackling the known issues first. The rave valves don't look too hard to work on from what I read, but I'm going to enjoy this thing for a bit first.
I'd like to take the rear end of the jets off and check out the wear rings, and add fresh oil to it. I should probably do that sooner than later given how this thing seems to have been treated in the past. I was afraid to dig into anything more until I knew I could get it running again. Any suggestions on most important next steps? BTW the previous owner removed the oil injection so its mixed gas now. There is still some oil going to the lower end as I understand there needs to be.
Anyways, my wife probably will never understand and/or appreciate all the work that went into all this, but I figured some of you might like to hear it and could understand what I went through. All the best guys!
PS: I saw an exact twin of my boat on facebook with a blown motor for fairly cheap, and I have half a mind to buy it and fix it since I'm so familiar with how most of this works now. Not sure I will do that, but I did give it some thought. That would involve putting in a whole new motor which sounds a bit overwhelming but I have confidence I could figure it out.
