pslawinski
New Member
I've just inherited a 2006 RXP 215. The ski has bout 150hrs on the clock. Up to this spring the ski has been maintained by a shop close to the lake house (I don't know anything about their reputation, I've never interacted with them myself.) As far as service history, I know at one point the thing flooded with water a bit due to a crack in the hull. The supercharger had to be rebuilt about two or three years ago. Just this spring the ski went into the shop for annual service and they suggested rebuilding the jet pump so we had that done. Supposedly the shop did a tune up as well, which I would have expected at a bare minimum to consist of an oil change, and swapping the plugs. I'm fairly certain they didn't change the plugs, because I had to do that just two months ago. Two of the three plugs simply stopped firing -- period. I also doubt they changed the oil, I just did that, and the old oil / oil filter were pretty black. I also changed the starter this year (it burnt up.) I had to replace the speed sensor (the wheel broke off.) I went ahead and fixed the VTS motor while I was replacing the starter motor.
This brings us to the most recent developments with the Ski. Two weekends ago, I was riding the ski, and all the sudden it started beeping, and it seemed like the ECU was cutting fuel. I looked at the dash and it read "OIL." I stopped the engine called for a tow, then (perhaps stupidly) I started the engine and proceeded to try and meet the tow halfway by idling as far as I could. When I restarted the ski, it emitted a cloud of white smoke. The smoke was not persistent at that point though. When I finally got the ski back home and on the trailer, I found that there was apparently *no* oil left in the engine (or at least very little.) There was some oil in the hull, but it didn't appear to be anywhere near the amount of oil that the engine appeared to be lacking. Prior to that weekend, I had seen oil in the hull, but I had dismissed it thinking that maybe when the oil was changed the shop had spilled a little in the hull. It wasn't really *that* much oil.
This past weekend, I set about cleaning the oil out of the hull thinking that if there was some kind of minor leak or whatever it would be easier to locate with a clean hull. I tried in vain to locate the source of the leak, before refilling the engine, but to no avail. I siphoned out what little there was of the oil, or at least as much as I could get. I then proceeded to fill the engine with the new XPS oil from BRP. I assumed that since the annual maintenance kit came with a gallon of oil the engine would want the entire gallon of oil. Maybe I was wrong, or maybe I didn't get all the oil out? At any rate, after checking the dip stick, the oil level was maybe 1/2 -3/4" above the 'safe' zone. I thought maybe the oil just hadn't distributed throughout the engine, and once the engine was run the level would drop to normal. So, I ran the engine for a minute or two on the garden hose. The engine stalled the first time I started it, but ran normally after the second start. I let it run for a minute or two to get up to temp, and then shut it down.
After testing, I put the ski in the water and again, it stalled on the first try. After it started, it started belching out thick white smoke. It was also blowing oil out the exhaust, evidenced by an oil slick on the water that followed me around. I idled for a minute and a half or so, before I determined it wasn't getting better, and pulled it out of the water again. The next day I pulled some of the oil and got it to the normal operating level. I tested it again on the water hose, and it was still belching out white smoke -- lots of it, it was also still blowing oil.
I pulled the plugs and fuel rail, and found that the plug in cylinder #1 was drenched in oil, also the injector was drenched in oil. Upon closer inspection, I see what appears to be water in cylinder 1. The other cylinders had a little bit of oil right where the injector seals to the intake manifold, but the plugs didn't have any liquid oil on them. I also didn't see water sitting on top of the pistons like in cylinder 1.
I'm going to order one of those inspection cameras to have a look inside the engine, and under the engine. I'm also going to get a cheapo compression tester. Does anybody have any thoughts on what might be wrong here? My current line of thinking is that there are two separate issues. 1) The driveshaft seal has gone out, and that is the source of the oil leaking. 2) The head gasket has gone, perhaps that happened when the thing ran out of oil (or when I overfilled it?) If the shaft seal is the source of the leak could it have been damaged when the jet pump was rebuilt? Maybe the seal is worn out from years of use?
I find it strange that I found relatively little oil in the hull in spite of there being barely any oil on the dip stick. Seems like the shop should have mentioned something if they found oil in the hull when we took it in for service and they rebuilt the jet
Does this sound like it's not going to be worth fixing? Could this be something worse than just a blown head gasket? Maybe the rings are shot? Cracked block?
This brings us to the most recent developments with the Ski. Two weekends ago, I was riding the ski, and all the sudden it started beeping, and it seemed like the ECU was cutting fuel. I looked at the dash and it read "OIL." I stopped the engine called for a tow, then (perhaps stupidly) I started the engine and proceeded to try and meet the tow halfway by idling as far as I could. When I restarted the ski, it emitted a cloud of white smoke. The smoke was not persistent at that point though. When I finally got the ski back home and on the trailer, I found that there was apparently *no* oil left in the engine (or at least very little.) There was some oil in the hull, but it didn't appear to be anywhere near the amount of oil that the engine appeared to be lacking. Prior to that weekend, I had seen oil in the hull, but I had dismissed it thinking that maybe when the oil was changed the shop had spilled a little in the hull. It wasn't really *that* much oil.
This past weekend, I set about cleaning the oil out of the hull thinking that if there was some kind of minor leak or whatever it would be easier to locate with a clean hull. I tried in vain to locate the source of the leak, before refilling the engine, but to no avail. I siphoned out what little there was of the oil, or at least as much as I could get. I then proceeded to fill the engine with the new XPS oil from BRP. I assumed that since the annual maintenance kit came with a gallon of oil the engine would want the entire gallon of oil. Maybe I was wrong, or maybe I didn't get all the oil out? At any rate, after checking the dip stick, the oil level was maybe 1/2 -3/4" above the 'safe' zone. I thought maybe the oil just hadn't distributed throughout the engine, and once the engine was run the level would drop to normal. So, I ran the engine for a minute or two on the garden hose. The engine stalled the first time I started it, but ran normally after the second start. I let it run for a minute or two to get up to temp, and then shut it down.
After testing, I put the ski in the water and again, it stalled on the first try. After it started, it started belching out thick white smoke. It was also blowing oil out the exhaust, evidenced by an oil slick on the water that followed me around. I idled for a minute and a half or so, before I determined it wasn't getting better, and pulled it out of the water again. The next day I pulled some of the oil and got it to the normal operating level. I tested it again on the water hose, and it was still belching out white smoke -- lots of it, it was also still blowing oil.
I pulled the plugs and fuel rail, and found that the plug in cylinder #1 was drenched in oil, also the injector was drenched in oil. Upon closer inspection, I see what appears to be water in cylinder 1. The other cylinders had a little bit of oil right where the injector seals to the intake manifold, but the plugs didn't have any liquid oil on them. I also didn't see water sitting on top of the pistons like in cylinder 1.
I'm going to order one of those inspection cameras to have a look inside the engine, and under the engine. I'm also going to get a cheapo compression tester. Does anybody have any thoughts on what might be wrong here? My current line of thinking is that there are two separate issues. 1) The driveshaft seal has gone out, and that is the source of the oil leaking. 2) The head gasket has gone, perhaps that happened when the thing ran out of oil (or when I overfilled it?) If the shaft seal is the source of the leak could it have been damaged when the jet pump was rebuilt? Maybe the seal is worn out from years of use?
I find it strange that I found relatively little oil in the hull in spite of there being barely any oil on the dip stick. Seems like the shop should have mentioned something if they found oil in the hull when we took it in for service and they rebuilt the jet
Does this sound like it's not going to be worth fixing? Could this be something worse than just a blown head gasket? Maybe the rings are shot? Cracked block?
