2005 Sportster SCIC problems

[khangoroo]

Hello all,

I'm new to this forum and ask for your help.

I recently purchased a 2005 Sportster SCIC 215hp. I took delivery from the dealer on Thursday and headed to Lake Chelan, WA for the weekend. What a disappointing time it turned out to be! On my first outting on Friday, I was running the boat just fine for an hour when all of a sudden the engine did not respond to the throttle. I quickly backed off and shut of the engine. When I revved up to about 3000 rpm, the boat did not want to move. I tried reversing and throttling it; put it in neutral; tried all sorts of things and still, some shakes and rattles and tons of white smoke coming from the back. This continued for about 1/2 hour until I gave up. I docked the boat and quickly called the dealer. They had me change out the spark plugs and asked about old gas in the tank and all sorts of things. None of it worked. After a few hours, changing the spark plugs, I took it out again. Same problem. I gave up for the day. The following day I towed it out of the water. Looked in the water intake and sure enough, lots of little wood chips and a good size piece of wood was lodged tight between the impeller and the wear ring. After about an hour I dislodged it, took the boat out again, and like magic my boat was running again. Then it happened again! More weird sounds and tons of white smoke.

My concern is this: The logical explanation is the wood chips. On both days, I took the boat out quite far, probably a couple miles from shore before it failed. And in both instances, I came back into shore at about 2500 rpm and like 5 mph. Did I damage my engine or anything else? Where did all that white smoke come from? Is this just purely a problem with the water intake, impeller and wear ring? I took it back to the dealer and they did find another wood chip that caused the second failure. They said, "it's all ready to be picked up." I doubt if they checked anything else, and I want to ask them to check other things that could be "wrong" with the boat, but I don't know what to point out.

ANY help and suggestions you could offer would be really appreciated. Should I give up on this boat after one outing if this is the kind of problem I can expect on a jet boat, and how do I prevent it from happening again (I tried really hard to steer clear of wood on the water but it still failed twice!)?

Thanks!

 

[khangoroo]

can someone please reply and help?

I really like this boat for a lot of reasons and i just want it to be in perfect running condition. What could have caused the problems I described, and how should I go about fixing them?

Thanks again

 

[thor7000]

You really need to be aware of your surroundings when in a jet boat, I sucked up a plastic kite handle when idling near a beach!! Never go full throttle in anything less then 3 ft of water because the suction can easily pull up a half decent sized rock from the bottom. Just sounds like you have things getting stuck in your impeller/wear ring, I wouldn't get frustrated...just part of jet boat life!!

 

[khangoroo]

Thank you thor7000. Besides for being aware of the surroundings, is there anything i can do to prevent or lessen the occurrence of something getting lodged in the impeller? What types of tools should I have on board so i can resolve the issue if it happens again?
Karl - any advice on this post or my original post? Thanks!

 

[thagannn]

Well, there are certain types of intake grates you could buy, that help restrict foreign objects from being sucked up, but at the same time they will have an effect on your performance. If you ride on a lake with a lot of floating wood, it's probably a good idea to change the grates. Then if you ride cleaner lakes you can switch back to your stock grate.

 

[khangoroo]

Thanks for the tip on switching out intake grates. Any suggestions of where to look/buy a different grate?

So the dealer called me back and said they removed a piece of wood from the impeller. They said the impeller looked fine and so did the wear ring. This dealer is a seadoo dealer but not a seadoo BOAT dealer. So I don't know if I should ask them to check the engine or anything else. They said a compression test for the engine or testing the supercharger was not needed. Any suggestions on other things I should have them look at, or should I bring the boat to a seadoo BOAT dealer?

thanks!

 

[Gamerse]

Its the same engine used in the skis. Does that make them a good dealership for for any repair ski or boat? Who knows, and that is the question to ask. I'm still mulling over the white smoke issue. After reviewing the manuals, the only things I saw are the intercooler or headgasket. White smoke is a sign that the engine is ingesting coolant. I would ask the dealer to have a technician test drive the boat. If they cannot do that, I would find a factory trained Seadoo repair facility, at a marina that will. Another alternative is to pressure test the cooling system. It should hold 13psi without leaks. I haven't had the chance to see a hot heat exchanger in the water yet, but maybe you were seeing steam from it? Water boils at 212 degrees in a perfect world, which is about the temp the thermostat opens. Let us know what happens.

:cheers:
Ernest.

 

[khangoroo]

Wow, thanks for all the great suggestions, Ernest.

As far as test driving the boat, whether it's the dealer or the factory trained SD repair, what would they be looking for? The white smoke, or should I ask them to look for something specifically? As far as pressure testing the cooling system, is that something I could do or would I ask the dealer to do it?

This whole part: "I haven't had the chance to see a hot heat exchanger in the water yet, but maybe you were seeing steam from it? Water boils at 212 degrees in a perfect world, which is about the temp the thermostat opens." Sorry, Ernest, I'm not sure what that all means. I don't know too much about boats.

Oh, I forgot to mention something. So the first time the wood chip got stuck in the impeller, and I removed it...remember I was able to take the boat out again, and it ran perfect, no white smoke at all. Well, I mean I could see tiny bits of smoke here and there but nothing substantial. There was tons of white smoke before I got the wood chip out, and after the boat ran into the same problems the second time around. Basically, Friday a.m. - perfect, then problem - white smoke, then got rid of wood in impeller on Saturday a.m. - perfect, then problem again - white smoke.

When I told the dealer, he said, all that white smoke was probably coming from the wood chip burning up against the wear ring when you throttled it while it was stuck. Is that even right? He insists that I didn't need to run any tests on the engine because it thinks it was just the wood chip in the impeller, and there was no need to do a compression test on the engine because they just did that in the service right before I picked up the boat on Thursday.

 

[Gamerse]

The exhaust has a bit of water injected into it to act as a baffle and flame arrester. It also cools under hood temps by lowering the exhaust tract temps. A small amount puffing white steam from the exhaust is common in marine 4 strokes. This can be seen by people behind the boat. Large amounts that are visible to the driver while on plane, probably indicate a problem. The heat exchanger I'm referring to is your ride plate. I don't have a 215 SCIC sportster manual, but its the same engine as the ski, and if it uses the same cooling system, your ride plate is actually the heat exchanger. Its the equivalent of a radiator in your car. I was imagining that if the boat was generating enough heat, and not going anywhere, it may cause a bit of steam.

Coolant pressure checks can be done by anyone with the correct cap adapter and a test kit. Yes you can do it yourself. Is the kit and adapter something that you would want to invest money into, probably not. I would guess by your posts that your normal job is not a car mechanic, so it would be two tools you would probably never use again. You could call your local autozone or equivalent and see if they have the tools on a "loan a tool" basis. You pay a small deposit, borrow the tool, and bring it back for a refund of deposit. If not, any autoshop with an ASE certification logo displayed will probably have one, and they may do it for 1/2 hour of labor, or free, depending on the shop and how busy they are. Its a small cap, so an import auto adapter might work.

Burning wood under water.... Well, it may be possible to generate enough friction to cause steaming, but I would think that even with a cavitated pump, enough water would flow through to prevent that kind of heat build up. I could be wrong though.

Prevention, well, now that you know your boat won't go with something in the drive, lets look at safe jetboating practices. I'll avoid proper terms and use common lingo so that there is less explaining and more understanding.

#1 your boat sits about a foot under the water, when the boat is floating. When you weight the boat down, it sits deeper in the water.
#2 your pump needs about one foot of clearance from the bottom of the lake to run at idle speed without sucking something up. If that
something is is a sprawled out tree branch, and you are in one foot of water, chances are your screwed.
#3 A good idea is to walk the boat out from the bank untill you are at least over knee deep in water.
Waist deep if you are under 5'5"..... (just guessing, who knows, you may have legs like a giraffe)
#4 Always shut the boat down some distance from unknown banks and walk the boat in.
#5 If you know the bank, you can come in shallow as long as you know there are no obstructions. The best way to decide this is to swim an
area first to clear it. Once you have an area, stick with it. If you like to visit new areas often, bring an anchor.
#6 If your friends make fun of your practices because they have prop boats, just remember that their boat is half as much fun as yours, and
one day they will be paying for props and expensive drivetrain repairs.
#7 smile and enjoy.

 

[khangoroo]

Thank you for the great explanation and the tips.

I found the owner's manual here: http://www.operatorsguides.brp.com/Index.aspx?lang=E&s1=5334e79a-1176-42da-88f7-ceff3b4afc55

So I take it from your post that I should do two things:
1. Cooling system pressure test: if there are no leaks (leaking coolant in the engine) - I'm good to go.
2. Hot heat exchanger/ ride plate: lodged piece of wood caused overheating and thus steam. What do I do to make sure the radiator is not fouled or needs replacing? Or are you saying that I saw smoke because it overheated, and if the jet pump drive is working fine and no smoke then I'm good to go...nothing to fix/repair.

 

[Gamerse]

1. correct

2. The exchanger works by water flowing across it, the theory is, it being stationary in a body of water, with high coolant temps, may cause steaming in the water, thus rising from behind the boat. I'm sure it is not fouled.

2.5 yes, no smoke, good to go.

I don't think it overheated, because the boat should annoy you to death with some sort of warning from the beeper. However, lake water will boil before your engine overheats, thus the rideplate/heat exchanger steam theory.

Best of luck
:cheers:
Ernest

 

[khangoroo]

Thank you Ernest. You're awesome.

So in essence, so its reallly clear for me, all I have to do is the coolant pressure test. If it checks out fine, and I take my boat out and there are no white smoke, I'm golden. I guess I understand the functionality of the heat exchanger, but don't quite understand why it would steam the water (what caused the white smoke in my situation). Are you saying that if my boat is running normal (nothing in the water intake/jet pump/impeller), then as I'm planing across the water, the coolant temp is not high and thus water flowing across the exchanger is not being boiled (no steam/white smoke and sufficient cooling of the ride plate)? But if my boat is not running normal (something lodged in the impeller), the coolant temp is now getting really hot and causing the ride plate to get really hot, and since I'm just slowly tracking along on the water (almost stationary), the water is boiling/steaming (white smoke)? I'd love to see an animation of how this ride plate thing works! Thanks again Ernest.

 

[Gamerse]

It is just a loose idea, but yes. If everything is fine, exchanger will stay cool. If exchanger is sitting still with a large heat load, then yes, that could make it hot. The only hole in this theory is the fact you are in a large body of water, (the lake) will that water move on its own by heat or current? I can't say.

If things check out and a good solid testdrive turns out good, then yes, golden as you say.

 

[khangoroo]

Thanks! I won't get to testdrive for another few weeks, but hopefully everything turns out well. Will update then...