Tracing Battery Drain

[97GTXnTX]

Have experienced the 12V low coming on my 97 GTX. I have been reading several posts about troubleshooting this issue and here is where I am at.
Checked charging system and it appears to be around 14.
Checked 15 amp fuse near battery, 15 and 5 amp fuse in front of ski-all okay.
Using a 12 volt test light connected between the neg. cable and neg terminal. With lanyard off I get a brief light that comes on and then dies. If I wait 5 seconds or so the same thing happens. Doesn't this tell me there is a very small draw?
Start pulling connections to find what might be causing the draw. I found a few places where the test light won't come on.
1. 6 pin rectangular plug towards the front,top, center of the circular attachement on the front of the engine where I would guess a flywheel would be based on the location of the starter. Don't know what the name of this might be?
2. At the front of the ski in front of an electrical box there were 3 connectors. If I unplugged the one with 2 wires (one red with dark stripe and one black with red stripe) the light wouldn't come on. I traced these 2 wires going up to the gauge cluster. There were 5 more connectors coming out of the guage cluster underneath the cover. If I unplugged the 2 or 3 on the left the light wouldn't come on either.
3. Also think the light wouldn't come on when pulling I think the connector or 15 amp fuse in the box by the battery that I assume houses a starter solenoid? Sorry can't remember as I was checking several things.

Curious which way I should head as far as more diagnosing and what the 6 pin connector on the front does. If I unplugged it with everything hooked up including the lanyard then the guage cluster would go dead.

Great site by the way with tons of info.
I also experienced surging when trying to apply full throttle this weekend and it wouldn't rev past 5500. Mine still has all the grey fuel lines so I bought 25 feet of fuel line to today and plan on replacing all the lines and cleaning the carb filters.
Last question. There appears to be a white inline filter on the oil line coming out of the oil tank-is it a filter and should it be replaced.
Thanks for the help.
Bryan

 

[97GTXnTX]

No one has replied but I did do some more checking and searching on the website.
Found that my beeper/buzzer doesn't work even after cleaning the lanyard and post.
Does it really matter if it works or not and does it even have to be there? If I need I will pick one up at radio shack but I don't think that is my problem.
Decided to check my rave valves and they were in bad shape. Ski only has 60 freshwater hours and seems to be very clean.
Guess I need to search for a sticky or thread that covers all the maintenance items that should be performed and how to do them.

So does anyone have any thoughts on what the parts are described in my first post that might be draining my battery? Would like to solve the problem while I pull the carbs to check the filters and replace the fuel lines this weekend.
Thanks,
Bryan

 

[97GTXnTX]

Am I missing a thread on the search that would give me pictures and point to what the different components are so I can try and figure out what is draining my battery?

Thanks to this site I pulled the carbs and cleaned the internal filters. Mag didn't look good and the PTO was solid black with tons of gunk in it. Adjusted the pto carb as its high speed adjuster wasn't turned all the way in. Replaced all the grey fuel lines so hoping that will solve my surging issues and allow it to rev past 5500.
Will test it out this weekend and see if I can get a better diagnosis on the electrical issues.
Does anyone know if a beeper that is barely audible would cause any problems? IT doesn't seem to be draining my battery and I dont' really like the chirp sound it makes anyway.

 

[JPX]

Other than cleaning up a mess of an ignition box (I get to talk about it a lot), I don't have a lot of experience chasing wiring problems in these boats. But I certainly have experience chasing dash wiring in cars. The priniciples are the same - and usually requires a good schematic in the absence of a good troubleshooting tree/guide/fishbone/strawman/(insert various corporate management jargon here).

I suppose if you wanted to test the beeper (the least of your problems), you could remove it from the steering cowling and hook it up directly to a 9V battery . But the quiet beeper is more likely related to the electrical problem you are pursuing.

This resistance check table might help with the MPEM itself http://www.seadoosource.com/mpemtest.html

 

[KTMatt]

I would check the rectifier for your battery drain. I just replaced mine. The early signs of it going is the battery will slowly drain. When it dies it won't recharge the battery at all. To test unplug the rectifier and check voltage with cables hooked up to the battery. You should get same voltage if the battery wasn't hooked up. Then plug the rectifier in and see if the voltage drops. If it does bad rectifier.

Matt from Mass

 

[97GTXnTX]

Now its only running on 1 cylinder which I would think needs to be fixed first.
I checked the gap on the plugs and they were .28 so out of range. Did a compression test and both cylinders are 150-whew. Connected one plug wire and grounded other and it ran. Swapped them and it wouldn't run. Go to the electrical box in the back-still confused which is the MPEM-front or back electrical box. Pull plug wires out of ignition coil and swap them. I am only getting fire from one side of the coil. By this time it was dark so I called it a day.
I am assuming it is the ignition coil???? Any thing else to check? Will double check all the wires/grounds/clean etc. And perform the rectifier test-thanks Matt. I am hoping this would solve multiple problems.
Site is great-have been reading all posts I can relating to searches for my possible problems. So now I know the answer to some of the questions in my original post.
1. magneto/stator pickup that goes to the front electrical box to the rectifier
I will again check the wires to see where everything goes for the electrical system to doublecheck.

Thanks for the help guys-trying to get it ready to take on vacation tuesday.

My seadoo story-
Live on a small lake and getting married. Instead of big honeymoon we get a seadoo (good wife) and have a nice honeymoon in texas. One night hooking up the seadoo to the truck I pull on it too hard and crush my pinky finger between the tongue and the bumper. 3 hour surgery next day to repair. Another surgery to remove 4 metal pins, and graft a tendon from my wrist. Pinky ends up curling up and locks from scar tissue. Wait a year and have the pinky surgically removed. So now I have a small left hand to fit in tight spaces to help me work on my seadoo.
Bryan-

 

[KTMatt]

You did switch the plugs I hope? Sometimes people over look the simple. A fouled plug. I did this same thing with my banshee a long time ago.
Matt from Mass

 

[97GTXnTX]

Back running on both cylinders!!!

Good suggestion Matt but I did try that as well as switching the plug wires from plug to plug. Though I can't be for sure that wasn't a problem. No telling how many times when dealing with things like this people miss the obvious and think it is something difficult.

I went back and doublechecked everything. Took off the wires on the battery, and ground strap to sand down and make sure they were clean. No change. Did some more research.
Cut a 1/4 inch off the plug wires going into the coil, pulled the wire out of one boot and cut a half inch off it. Still no change. Added a secondary ground strap between the coil and the neg cable and had fire on both cylinders. Pulled the plugs and cleaned them with brake cleaner to get the oil/gas off of them from trying to start it so many times.
Hooked it up to the hose and ran it for awhile. Would rev up fine without a load. Checked voltage and only showing a little of 13 which was disappointing. Pulled one wire at a time to make sure I still had fire on both cylinders and I did. Now I am upset that I didn't make sure to change only one thing at a time to isolate what fixed the problem. I pulled the secondary ground strap and still had fire on both cylinders.
Now I need to get it on the lake and see how it works under a load.

Next problem to fix is one of the rave valves is leaking. Can I just use RTV and get rid of the gasket I guess I damaged when cleaning the valves?

Matt-I checked the rectifieir the way I thought you explained but not sure if I did it right. I checked the voltage at the BATTERY with the rectifier plugged in and unplugged but voltage at the Battery remained the same? Was I suppossed to check voltage at the rectifier?

Thanks for the help-will update after next round. Not seeing the 12V light coming on while on the trailer and have cranked the motor no telling how many times.

 

[Dennis]

regulator

You should check the voltage at the battery when checking the regulator.
It would not surprize me a bit if the reg was bad. "low volt" and battery draw are the main symptoms of a bad reg. I have found in the past that there are two types of regulators in the 97 GTX..............the ones that are bad and the ones that are going bad!!!!!!!!!
DAWG

 

[97GTXnTX]

Thanks Dennis-good to know about the regulator problem.
Is the regulator the same thing as the rectifier? Still learning all the terminology to the seadoo as this is the first problems I have had with it.