Yamaha Jet Boat Build

[dgoodwin10]

Posted from the Yamaha Jet Boaters Forum (for your viewing pleasure)

I am what most would consider a hobbyist mechanic/ fabricator having dabbled in a little bit of everything. I’ve bought, fixed and sold 13+ PWCs over the last few years, most of which being Seadoos (am I allowed to use that word here?) I’m also an Auburn student and will be graduating in a few short weeks as I write this, so all work was done while I was at home on work rotations with a local contractor. Rewind to December of 2014- I was needing a single trailer for a Seadoo I was working on and found a smoking deal on a ’99 GP 1200 with a trailer, so me being a sucker for a good deal bought it all. While I was at the guys house, I noticed a jet boat off in the woods, a ’98 Exciter SE- the GP1200 I was buying was the parts ski he’d planned to use to fix the boat, but had lost interest in it. Here it was the first time I saw it:







It was complete and in good shape, minus missing the motor. The price for the boat and trailer? $300. Needless to say, I told him I’d be back. Having never laid eyes on one, I found this forum and discovered the following these boats still have. The guy was close to Auburn, so I came back in January to grab the boat since he was cool enough to hold onto it. After changing a wheel bearing on the trailer in order to leave the guy’s house, it followed me home in January of 2015. The boat had to be put into storage for several months until I had time to work on it.

 

[dgoodwin10]

This brings us to Thanksgiving of 2015. At the time I still had plans to restore the GP1200, so I sourced a motor, carbs, exhaust and CDI for $800 shipped to the door, knowing the motor needed work. The motor ended up having failed the PTO crank seal, ruining the bearing and rear cylinder but the icing on the cake was that the crank was a Hot Rods unit. I ordered all OEM parts- head, pistons, rings, etc., resleeved the motor and had it bored to .5mm over after a slight debacle with the machine shop. As I do with all my Seadoos, the oil pump was removed in favor of running pre-mix fuel. The rebuilt motor went in at the end of my Thanksgiving break. Christmas break brought rebuilt carbs, Group K fuel air separator and a thorough cleaning.

 

[dgoodwin10]

The maiden voyage was in April of 2015 and, save for 1 loose hose clamp, went as good as you could ask for. Having to follow the proper break in procedure was painful, since I really wanted to see what the boat could do but I stuck to it. After several weekends on the water this boat has quickly become one of my favorite toys yet! I was a little skeptical of the single engine at first, but for what I’ll do with the boat it’s just fine, though it will be getting a new impellor in the off season.





With the boat running it’s time to move on to the important things- cosmetics! This off season we plan to begin a full color change, starting with wrapping the bottom half of the boat in a black vinyl, swapping the rub rail out to black and painting the rear deck. Getting the seats reupholstered will happen at some point, when money allows. Immediate plans also include adding a Dyomat like material to the engine to keep down the noise, because let’s face it… these boats aren’t quiet.

Long term we’re looking at a stereo, wake tower, hydro turf (or the like) and probably some LEDs somewhere. All of that wil come in time.

I always want to give credit where it's due- so thank you to everyone who has contributed to these forums. You're looking at the results of your contributions to these boards. I hope someone can benefit from this build, so feel free to fire away with questions and comments.

Stay tuned folks!

 

[snikwad003]

Nice. That boat has a much more usable bow lay out than the seadoos