I bought this a little while ago, as the deal was too good to turn down. A Craigslist ad had popped up:
Jet Ski $150. I don't know nothing about it. NO TRAILER. First one with cash gets it.
That was cheap enough I decided to buy it. on a lark. I called the guy and told him I would be there with a trailer at after work. He said if somebody showed up before me, too bad. I advised I'd call before I left. When the time came, nobody had showed up yet, so I hooked up the trailer and drove out to Peacock's Crossroads, NC (AKA, the middle of nowhere).
The guy had done some trading to get the jet ski and the aluminum trailer it was sitting on. He just wanted the trailer and had just dumped this in his yard. That is all he knew about it. He didn't know if it ran, didn't know if the hull was solid and he didn't care. His son-in-law helped me load it.
I got it home and checked it out a bit closer. The hull is in good shape. The trim is a bit beaten up. It may have had some work done based on the DG exhaust.
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It was last stickered in 2004. The fuel in the tank looked about that old. It kept separating into mostly clear liquid and red, viscous varnish. The varnish was about an inch deep on the bottom of the tank with maybe 5 gallons of other no longer gasoline liquid on top of that. I drained it out into a "trash" gas can I keep handy for just such problems. It will be used to start fires. There was a bit of varnish in the bottom that was just too syrupy to try to siphon out. I decided to tackle that at a later time, since it would involve removing the fuel tank.
I charged the battery and mixed up some fresh gasoline and 2 stroke oil and, with the fuel system turned OFF, poured it into the carb.
https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Ffacebook%2Fvideos%2F10215218840408272%2F&width=500&show_text=false&height=281
I either went a bit heavy on the oil or it was just really cruddy in there.
It sat like that until last night when I pulled out the 2 stroke tank and gas tank. Alcohol works GREAT to swish around in a dirty fuel tank. I didn't have much handy, but I did have some CRC Air Brake Anti-freeze, which is mostly methanol. I poured 8 oz. of that in there and swished it around. It broke up all the varnish and water and left the tank pretty clean. This is what the last dregs of the tank looked like, combined with the clear CRC product. Yeah, it separated out like that on its own.
Next up: Rebuild the Keihin 40mm carb and replace every inch of fuel line in this sucker. Clean out the interior, check to see if the bilge pump works.
Hell berkeleying yes
I love this and will be watching with eager anticipation.
This is relevant to my interests, carry on
Here is a small fraction of the gas that came out of the gas tank. I've been clearing brush since the weather got a bit cool, and using the flamable liquid that came out of the PWC to burn it. I think this is the last jar of the mess that came out of the fuel tank.
I also realized I'd not updated this.
It turns out that summer time isn't the best time to work on summer projects- there's too much summer to enjoy.
So, this project sat idle until recently.
I got a Venom carb rebuild kit and 30 feet of new fuel hose. I didn't take pictures when I was rebuilding the carb, but to say it was gunky and needed a rebuild would be an understatement. Every gasket in the thing was hard and the varnish in there took a while to get clean. I'm glad that's all taken care of, but I need to order a new fuel pickup for the gas tank to see if I can get the engine to run on it's own. Then I have a good bit of maintenance (check linkages, grease bearings for impeller, etc.) to do.
The engine is fed 2 stroke from a remote reservoir, kind of like a rotary gets oil for the apex seals. Given that this is a marine application and I can't walk on water, a breakdown is a bit more serious than one in a car. I'd feel better installing a block-off kit for the 2 stroke metering and just pre-mixing in the main tank.
More updates as they happen.
I have an 1996 SL-750 that I have kept running for 10 years now, so ask me anything. If yours has not had the triple-outlet fuel pump done yet, DO IT. Lots of people remove the oil tank and pre-mix, mine still works great so I don't mess with it. greenhulk.net is your friend.
Mine will do 46 mph indicated on the river when it is glassy, who knows how accurate that is but it sure is fun.
The camera adds 20 pounds. Of fat. To your neck.
This is the first PWC I've ever owned and I know nothing.
I'll have to look up this triple outlet fuel pump thing.
Also, a picture of the thing when I picked it up in May.
I'm pretty sure it never saw salt water (always a concern around here).
Seconding the recommendation for Greenhulk.net, the polaris people there are a good bunch (I am a dirty Kawasaki man myself)
Sean
I might have to throw some pictures of the fuel system up here. It looks like the fuel pump is one large piece and I can't find the parts online to replace.
Since its a carby' 2 stroke, the assembly in tank is probably just a pickup and level sending unit. The fuel pumps are pulse driven on the carbs themselves if its like any other carb pwc.
Sean
Great, cheap project, good luck with it.
I've had this since brand new, '95 SXi. This pic is from this summer, she's mint still and still a blast.
My wife and I got this for her, 2000 SeaDoo GTX:
Apparently the VDO Yazaki fuel intake/sender switch, P/N 1551005988a that was in it is no longer available.
It looks kind of like this, without the wire.
Now I have to figure out what I can use instead. The contacts in mine seem to be all messed up. I'm wondering if the pickup tube itself is still viable.
I did an eBay search and it showed a few used ones available, maybe one of them is the right one.
Thanks. The ones on Ebay seem to be a different part number. I'm sure there is a part out there I can use, I just gotta find it.
Lockdown revisit.
The orange thing in the picture below isn't in the best shape.
Here is the one I took out. There is no provision for a fuel gauge, but the internals look sketchy.
For those of you much more familiar with this sort of thing, is a generic fuel pickup in the right size good enough, or am I overcomplicating things?
Do you have the original?
Generic idea of what I would do:
I would look at the tubes and if they need replaced, drill them out, make new ones and use a good fuel proof epoxy to construct a usable part, unless the electrical is required you should be running. Isn't the electrical part just for fuel level?
When it stops running you know your low or out of fuel ... 
Sorry, I couldn't stop myself.
The one I took pictures of is the one that was in the tank when I removed it. I've no idea if it was original or not.
I elected to work in this a bit today.
The goal was to figure out exactly what I'm doing, and maybe formulate a plan to do it. Here is what I found out:
- The fuel sender seems to be alright, so I can reuse it after I clean it.
- The labeling scheme for the fuel lines I came up with a year ago now makes zero sense.
- The fuel lines are grey, which means they might be original. In any case, they're trash, so I have to replace them all anyhow.
- The inline fuel filters are also trash, and I need new ones.
- As suggested by pinchvalve, GreenHulk is going to be my friend moving forward. I found one write up that detailed what fuel pickup is which there. That will be helpful, soon.
- I color coded this nifty fuel routing diagram I found so that I'll have an inkling of what I'm going to need to do once I'm ready to run the new fuel lines.
So today I worked on this, because I hurt my knee yesterday. It's still a bit sore and swollen, and laying in the driveway and getting up and down a few hundred times didn't seem that enticing.
So, I replaced every inch of fuel lines on this thing. In the course of doing that, it looks like the relief valve for the gas tank was on backwards. I turned that around so the vent will actually vent the tank and not just allow air into it. I was a bit concerned about which line was for the aux and which was for the main, but turning it to "MAIN" and then blowing through the lines was the fix for that. Wouldn't you know it, I had them installed correctly! Lots of stress over nothing. I did learn that the fuel pickup really only installs in one orientation, so some judicious use of a sharpie to label which line is which on the tank will make future work a bit easier.
I replaced the spark plugs with minty new ones. No use in doing all of this work and then trying to run it on old spark plugs.
So I'm close to getting ready to fire this up. I want to grease everything that might need to be greased, including the bearings on the trailer.
I also swung by the NC WRC earlier in the week to inquire about getting a title and registration. I went in with the hull ID and they have no record of it, at all, despite the ski having registration stickers from 2004. I wonder if the registration was really for another hull ID or if I just can't read. In any case, they said I had to go to the main office to get this sorted out. I can see that that would be a big deal to somebody that didn't live 30 minutes away from the office, so maybe that's how things got out of whack.
I'll also have to brave the DMV to register the title and register the trailer.
Work so far:
1. Removed old fuel system
2. Cleaned the fuel tank very well.
3. Cleaned refurbished the carbeurator
4. Replaced all fuel lines.
5. Replaced spark plugs
6. Some cleaning of the interior of the hull while the fuel system was out.
7. Replaced rotten wooden bunks on the trailer.
Things to do:
1. Grease everything on the jet ski
2. Install a primer bulb on the main fuel line
3. Grease the trailer bearings and perform any other trailer maintenance required (lights, winch, etc)
4. Titles and registration
5. So much cleaning
6. Test start
7. Sea trial
I don't think this is going to be a permanent keeper- we've got four people in the family, and having one jet-ski doesn't seem like a great way to keep everybody involved. Additionally, without having a working fuel gauge, I'm not sure I want to risk setting it up as a fishing rig. So, this will likely be the starter jet-ski. If it turns out we love it, we'll see what happens.
Seeing the Jet Boat thread float up to the top has me wondering if it's something I should do. By that, I mean I'm actively looking for a 14' skiff hull.
Hah... Was messing around a bit and decided to try to start this up. Of course, the battery was flat. It's been on the charger for an hour and just went to 1% charged. I think the battery might be screwed.
In reply to Brett_Murphy (Forum Patrón) :
Sounds like a flat battery
It's charging... slowly.
I went to fill up the tires in the riding mower today and one of the valve stems came apart. I might just grab the battery out of that and see what it does, since I won't be using the riding mower for a bit.
Battery is shot. Since the riding mower is down, I put that battery in there and did a compression test.
Rear:
Front:
NICE.
But there is a problem. It'll run if I prime the carb with the bulb, but it will quit right after that. I'm not sure what I messed up. I put inline filters on the lines and the priming bulb, so I'm thinking of just running a line from the tank to the carb to see if something along the way is causing the issue. That'll be for tomorrow or something.
Looking at the carb diagram I had IN MY OWN THREAD, I think I see what I may have done wrong. I'll look at it tomorrow. I think I might have the intake line (red) hooked up where the green line is in the diagram.
