The Mystery of the 1996 Sea Doo GSX Starting....

[racerxxx]

I could be off base but does the gauge move, light up do something when you hit the start button ( I didn't read the entire post)? The plug has to be plugged into the front of the mag housing to complete the ground circuit. If not the electronics will be dead in the water. I think someone asked about the little ground from the rear e-box to the battery. I think you said it was hooked up----does it actually make continuity INTO the grounds INSIDE the rear e-box? Gotta make a ground all the way in.

 

[Coastiejoe]

Follow Racerxxx's advice, he know these siks well.

I need you to answer all the questions I had in my post #17 before I can give you more quality help. Here they are again,,,

Ok,,, if any of this is wrong, please correct it... And provide the results.

1). If you jump the solenoid it cranks as it should. Consistently and continuously?
2). With the lanyard on, it cranks ok for a moment, then stops, then only clicks?
3). After #2 happens, what happens if you IMMEDIATELY jump the solenoid? (Leaving the lanyard on).

 

[ravens9273]

Follow Racerxxx's advice, he know these siks well.

I need you to answer all the questions I had in my post #17 before I can give you more quality help. Here they are again,,,

Ok,,, if any of this is wrong, please correct it... And provide the results.

QUOTE][/

1). If you jump the solenoid it cranks as it should. Consistently and continuously? I did today. It tries but still seems week. It is not enough to start the ski. More of a jumping then cranking.
2). With the lanyard on, it cranks ok for a moment, then stops, then only clicks? This is what it was doing yesterday. Today it is completely dead. However I believe it is dead today due to the many wire changings I have done and obviously something is not hooked up right.
3). After #2 happens, what happens if you IMMEDIATELY jump the solenoid? (Leaving the lanyard on).
Cannot do now. Completely dead.

 

[Coastiejoe]

Ok,, no matter what else you have going on, if we can't get it to crank well by jumping the solenoid then nothing else matters.

So,, get a GOOD battery, I don't care if it is out of your vehicle, get something that is KNOWN to be good.
1(. Hook up the battery and jump the solenoid, what happens?

This will take some time because I/we will take this one step at a time, but we will get this figured out as long as you do what I/we ask.

I will be flying all day tomorrow but will have the internet and will be online all day long waiting to hear from you..

 

[ravens9273]

Ok,, no matter what else you have going on, if we can't get it to crank well by jumping the solenoid then nothing else matters.

So,, get a GOOD battery, I don't care if it is out of your vehicle, get something that is KNOWN to be good.
1(. Hook up the battery and jump the solenoid, what happens?

This will take some time because I/we will take this one step at a time, but we will get this figured out as long as you do what I/we ask.

I will be flying all day tomorrow but will have the internet and will be online all day long waiting to hear from you..

Thanks CoastieJoe.
Actually the battery today was a new battery fully charged when I started. I used pliers to connect the two solenoid posts. Could not keep it on the long because they were getting welded to the posts. But will give it another try tomorrow. Going to look all through every wire as well. I know something is not connected properly between today and yesterday.

 

[Coastiejoe]

Ok,, if you pull the plugs, will it crank or stop?

 

[Coastiejoe]

And,, get a meter on the battery, what does the voltage drop to when you are cranking the engine (via the solenoid is fine).

 

[ravens9273]

Will check those tomorrow and post results.

 

[Coastiejoe]

There are others that have much more knowledge then me, but I will do my best to follow the post and help you as quickly as possible..

 

[racerxxx]

Since you have extra parts, add nuts to the top of the solenoid posts, then bridge it with a real screw driver. Out of curiosity, with all this swapping of parts, are you using the same ground cable?



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[ravens9273]

At it again today. Nothing I did brought life to it. Still dead. I did change ground wire and still dead.
I added the extra bolts to solenoid posts and tried jumping it. It jumps and is like before it was dead as if it is a weak start. It jumps and sometimes has a half way crank.
The engine is new. Has never seen water yet. I can turn it by hand with plugs out. I do not have a meter at the moment to check volts or anything. But I did go through all wires and cannot find anything out of the ordinary.
I was looking at my 98 GSX limited. While I know they are not completely the same I was getting a better idea. One thing that was odd was my 98 GSX actually has a ground wire coming from the engine to the battery. It also has the black ground wire going to the stator cover.
The 96 has no ground wire going to the engine.
The history of this ski that I know is previous owner had the new engine put in 2 years ago. For 2 years he could not get it going after that. He finally gave up and sold it to me for $500. The engine is good. I looked it over and believe 100% it is new. Pistons are still completely clean and both cylinders have 170psi.
When I first got it, it would crank but was not getting fuel. This is problem previous owner had. he did rebuild the carbs but he put a part of the fuel pump on backwards. Once I corrected this fuel was going through with no problems. I had the ski running at my home (was only about 5 seconds). We took it to the water to ride for the first time right after it was running at home and then it would not crank at all. It had a whining sound coming from the electrical box.
I was given an extra electrical box with the ski from previous owner.
I originally thought it was the stator. My 98 GSX had problems starting after the winter. The stator compartment was full of mud and water. It was a mess in there.I took the stator from the 96 to make sure it was the problem with my 98 before buying a stator. Stator and new starter later and 98 runs perfect.
I bought another 96 GSX for $500. I bought this ski for parts and to sell off additional parts. Once again I was lucky to buy a ski with a new rebuilt engine. Engine was out of the ski when I bought so I started taking parts from this ski to fix the original 96 GSX.
I first started with the stator. Nothing changed. Still had a very weak start. I changed the starter and electrical boxes. Still weak starting. I then changed other wires and MPEM and Dess post from my new donor. All symptoms still the same. Nothing changed anything but it was not dead. I then bought new Battery. Still the same. I would get the two beeps when attaching the dess key. It would give a weak crank then stop. Then I would get one beep and only clicks when trying to start. I had to remove dess key for a while before it would try to crank again. It did this with both MPEM's
I started changing solenoids in the electrical boxes. One I forgot to fully plug the solenoid in. When I hit the start button a ton of smoke came from electrical box. That was all in one day, But ski was not dead.

The next day (after posting on here) I realized previous owner had the two red wires from electrical box attached to the wrong place. Battery wire was attached to starter and vice versa. So I switched them. Now ski was dead. No more beeping, and no more cranking.
I wondered if I fried my MPEM the day before when electrical box smoked. I then hooked up the other MPEM and still dead.
I changed electrical boxes, starter again, solenoid, ground wire etc... Nothing has worked to bring life back to the ski. Batteries are always fully charged as well.

Now I have jumped the solenoid as asked. I did add the extra bolts today. It is a weak crank. More like a jump. A couple of times it tried to crank but it was weak. Same results with all electrical boxes and 3 different batteries that were all fully charged.
So is it time to blow this ski up??

I do have access to buy another 96 GSX that runs and starts fine. Impeller is only thing wrong with it and obviously I have those. I can just change the whole jet drive in 10 minutes.
Then I can sell the parts off of the previous two. I have two engines one new and the other freshly rebuilt.
This ski is really not for me to ride. My baby is my 98 GSX. But it does get boring at times to ride alone and this second ski is for friends.
I have 2 97 speedsters as well and have been able to fix almost anything on the others. At times I have had questions and people here are extremely helpful but this ski right now I feel like digging a hole 50 feet deep. Dropping it in with a 100 pounds of dynamite. lite it up and watch the fireworks then fill the hole back in and forget all about it. At the same time I am the type of person that does not like failing or anything getting the best of me. Because of this I cannot give up.

 

[Coastiejoe]

Without a meter this will be hard. We really need to know the voltage at the battery when it is cranking.


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[ravens9273]

If I go grab a meter from harbor freight You want me to check the battery as I jump solenoid?

 

[ravens9273]

Maybe this could help. This ski was also famous for draining batteries. I could put a fully charged battery in it and in a couple of days the battery would be drained. My other ski's never did this. Do not know if this is helpful or not as to the problem.

 

[Coastiejoe]

Something is partially shorted I believe. Yes, cranking volts will help us.

And in your case, disconnect anything that is extra. Radio, bilge pump, depth sounder ect ect if you have any of these.


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[racerxxx]

The 96 has no ground wire going to the engine.




I was given an extra electrical box with the ski from previous owner.
.
.
.
.
The next day (after posting on here) I realized previous owner had the two red wires from electrical box attached to the wrong place. Battery wire was attached to starter and vice versa. So I switched them. Now ski was dead. No more beeping, and no more cranking.
.
.
.

I wondered if I fried my MPEM the day before when electrical box smoked. I then hooked up the other MPEM and still dead.
I changed electrical boxes, starter again, solenoid, ground wire etc... Nothing has worked to bring life back to the ski. Batteries are always fully charged as well.

The ground wire goes to the starter-starter is grounded to the engine. Little black wire on battery goes to rear ebox for a ground and I believe back up front and finally to the mag housing plug.


Does your rear ebox look like the one I posted? Does it have the 2 little red wires on one side of the solenoid post? If so which side, meaning battery cable side or starter cable side?

 

[ravens9273]

My Ebox looks the same as the picture you posted with the two little wires hooked up to the same side. Is this the starter side? I just want to confirm 100% which is starter or battery side because this was issue at one time.

 

[Coastiejoe]

Starter side will have only one single large wire. It is ONLY HOT WHEN the solenoid is closed.


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[racerxxx]

My Ebox looks the same as the picture you posted with the two little wires hooked up to the same side. Is this the starter side? I just want to confirm 100% which is starter or battery side because this was issue at one time.

No, those fuses go to the battery side. What prompted me to ask was your wording on you switched wires around.


Battery cable on the left, starter cable on the right.


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[ravens9273]

Todays update. Starter and battery wires were reversed. This is reason for being dead. Wire diagram showed this way and reason I changed it. Have power now again. Still weak crank. I usrd voltage meter on new battery and showed 12 volts. When cranking volts jumped down to 6, 5, and 3

 

[ravens9273]

I just changed rectifier and no change

 

[racerxxx]

I lost track, but I think this is a new battery, how about you get it load tested. I could be bad right out of the box. Where did you get it? Will they load test it and exchange it if its bad?

I think you have swapped starters too, right?

Can you drop the jet pump out and try it then?

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[ravens9273]

Just went to auto zone and had battery load tested and it is good.
Yes i changed starter as well

 

[Coastiejoe]

Something simple is wrong here..

You stated that the battery went down to 6 volts and lower while cranking. If you KNOW the battery is good, then you have a bad battery or ground wire or connection or a bad starter.

I would like to eliminate SOMETHING instead of jumping all over. As I said above.

Take QUALITY jumper cables from your car battery. Hook the positive cable to the STARTER side of the solenoid (One single large wire) and the positive terminal of the car battery. Then the ground of the jumper cable to the ground of the battery in your car, then the other ground to the engine block (good clean metal area). It may spark some but it should crank over.

No lanyard is needed at this time, and if you are woried about the MPEM yuo can unplug it. It will have no bearing on where I am headed at this time.

Do this and let us know what you have.

 

[soccerdad]

Do what Joe says. I will add that the car you are jumping from should not be running unless you disconnect the MPEM. (so just don't have it running).