1996 Seadoo Challenger loose driveshaft?

[lcnianarivera]

I was on the water last week when my boat stopped accelerating and started making a terrible noise, almost like a grinding or rubbing noise. I immediately pulled back the throttle but it took a few seconds before the RPM's starting dropping. The engine still ran as it should but there is no forward propulsion. I ran the boat on the trailer when I got home and the impeller spins when the motor is on. I removed the jet pump and turned the boat on and the terrible noise went away. I inspected the impeller and wear ring and nothing jumps out at me. I ordered an impeller removal tool and am waiting on it to arrive so that I can inspect the internals.

After removing the jet pump assembly, I noticed there is a lot of play in the driveshaft. I can move it left, right, up, or down (not in and out). Is this normal? If it isn't, then maybe that may be culprit. I am getting no significant leaks into the bilge so I'm thinking maybe this is normal. Any input would really be appreciated.

 

[lcnianarivera]

Anybody? I know many people here know the answer to this. Your help would be greatly appreciated. I also noticed that I can spin the driveshaft with my hand. I'm leaning towards this not being normal but some confirmation would really be nice.

 

[robomatic12]

The splines on the driveshaft may have stripped from a lack of lubrication, or poor alignment of engine PTO to jetpump.

See if you can spin driveshaft independently of the PTO, or spin the jet pump independently of the driveshaft. It may have stripped at one end, or both.

 

[mikidymac]

The drive shaft will wiggle around quite a bit with the pump out. That’s normal.

 

[lcnianarivera]

Thanks for the responses. For my particular case, the driveshaft splines were stripped on the PTO side. I replaced the PTO and driveshaft along with a few other items. While mikidymac is right that the driveshaft will wiggle around, my wiggled around a bit too much. I didn't think my splines were stripped since turning the engine on would spin the impeller, but I guess it was making just enough contact to spin the impeller as long as it wasn't under load. I believe the cause may have been excessive misalignment between the PTO and impeller since it appeared to be way off using the Seadoo alignment tool. I placed a bunch of seadoo shims under one of the rear engine mounts and it appears to be better aligned, although it can probably still be better aligned. I got everything put back together and am hoping to test it all out soon. Just wanted to write an update for anybody else who may have the same issue in the future. Thanks again for your inputs!

 

[mugfordd]

Did this help? Does it run fine now?