1996 GTI sucked up sand, instant high pitch winding sound and now machine sounds rough as all hell

[Donkendave]

Hey everyone,

I have a 96 GTI that's all original and in great condition, goes 52 mph as it should, wear ring clearance looks good at a glance (need to measure still), fuel and airlines appear in great shape, impeller appears in great shape, engine compression is 137 on both cylinders, carbs. look good as well as their filters (just cleaned filters 2 weeks ago) and gas filter just cleaned as well. So last Saturday I found myself in 6" of water with sand below, unfortunately I panicked and rather then killing the motor, I hit reverse and then proceeded to get back in forward and drove out. Within 1 minute I heard a loud, high pitch winding sound (only one time, lasted about 3 to 5 seconds) and the ski began sounding extremely rough and lost power. I tried cruising back with no throttle but within 5 minutes the engine temp light came on, I shut it down and got towed in. Since then I have done a compression test, examined the spark plugs, bumped the starter with plugs out, examined the shaft, impeller & wear ring, blown out the the water intake line (felt clogged for half a second and then blew through, thought that was it but no cigars), ran water through the coolant system in both directions; runs fine in the driveway but horrible when you put it in water. Next, I guess I will check out the impeller shaft reservoir and bearings to see if sand got in there possibly. I would have thought this would've been a common, easy to diagnose scenario, but I'm not finding anyone else that has experienced this problem. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[POPPS]

You may have plugged the water inlet in the pump with the sand,,,thus reducing the cooling to the motor,,,,when you run water thru it, does your pisser work?,,,you may want to do a compression test again,,,your numbers seem low, but then not all compression gauges are exact,,its possible you messed up your pump with all that sand,,,that could produce your high pitched sound,,,you may want to pull it and go thru it with a fine toothed comb.,,hopefully you did not damage a piston.

 

[Donkendave]

You may have plugged the water inlet in the pump with the sand,,,thus reducing the cooling to the motor,,,,when you run water thru it, does your pisser work?,,,you may want to do a compression test again,,,your numbers seem low, but then not all compression gauges are exact,,its possible you messed up your pump with all that sand,,,that could produce your high pitched sound,,,you may want to pull it and go thru it with a fine toothed comb.,,hopefully you did not damage a piston.

Figured it out, once I got the pump off, I was able to see that the drive shaft was spinning loosely in the PTO fly wheel. The splines on the drive shaft were badly worn down. $1000 in parts ordered; drive shaft, PTO fly wheel, carbon ring, support ring, bellows, rubber boot, impeller, impeller shaft, impeller assembly, impeller rebuild kit, gaskets and a few other minor parts, waiting on them now to install.