Little back story: Buddy picked up a '97 GSi. Hull was in solid condition, very little fading, seemed very well taken-care of for a 23 year old ski. Took her to the lake and she ripped great for about 4 hours out. Second time out on the lake, about an hour in it lost all top end power. Took it to a well-known ski mechanic that is pretty big in the community out here and he said it's getting bad pressure and needs a total rebuild.
Fast forward to today: Got the engine out and on a bench. Attempted to start with removing the top part of the head off. Found that all of the screws were absurdly tough, particularly the ones surrounding the cylinder closest to the rear of the ski. Ended up shearing off the heads on 3 bolts and stripping/twisting 3 others, 5 of which were all in the aforementioned cylinder. All the bolts had an unknown grainy gunk jammed in all the threads, and as this stuffed compressed it made the bolts harder and harder to turn. This is what caused the 3 stripped bolt heads, which were more than 50% backed out before they stripped. I ended up cutting the heads off the remaining bolts, as they need to be replaced anyway. I figured this would allow me to remove the cover and have a little more room to deal with getting the bolts out. Now, unless I'm missing something, this cover should be able to lift off, correct? I've been using a wedge and mallet for an hour to no avail.
Now, I'm a fairly experienced car mechanic, but I admit I have very little experience with 2 stroke engines and even less with watercraft. Based on what I'm seeing (3 bolts sheared due to exposure to high heat at some point, massive amounts of corrosion inside bolt threads that were painted over) it would be my guess that this motor is possibly beyond the scope of a rebuild. Am I wrong? And if not, what are the options moving forward? It seems like there are no options for a direction engine swap and I can't find any of these 717 motors for sale without buying another ski with one.
Fast forward to today: Got the engine out and on a bench. Attempted to start with removing the top part of the head off. Found that all of the screws were absurdly tough, particularly the ones surrounding the cylinder closest to the rear of the ski. Ended up shearing off the heads on 3 bolts and stripping/twisting 3 others, 5 of which were all in the aforementioned cylinder. All the bolts had an unknown grainy gunk jammed in all the threads, and as this stuffed compressed it made the bolts harder and harder to turn. This is what caused the 3 stripped bolt heads, which were more than 50% backed out before they stripped. I ended up cutting the heads off the remaining bolts, as they need to be replaced anyway. I figured this would allow me to remove the cover and have a little more room to deal with getting the bolts out. Now, unless I'm missing something, this cover should be able to lift off, correct? I've been using a wedge and mallet for an hour to no avail.
Now, I'm a fairly experienced car mechanic, but I admit I have very little experience with 2 stroke engines and even less with watercraft. Based on what I'm seeing (3 bolts sheared due to exposure to high heat at some point, massive amounts of corrosion inside bolt threads that were painted over) it would be my guess that this motor is possibly beyond the scope of a rebuild. Am I wrong? And if not, what are the options moving forward? It seems like there are no options for a direction engine swap and I can't find any of these 717 motors for sale without buying another ski with one.
