Enough rope to hang myself

[Arkansan]

Previously on As Arkansan's Sportster Turns, my husband and father-in-law successfully replaced the dead starter, and both engines started like champs. But despite plenty of RPMs, the boat would not get above 20 mph. Everyone's best friend, Dr. Honda, asked if there was anything in the pumps, and we didn't see anything obvious. And then we went home.

This afternoon we got back up to the boat, dropped down the grates and took some flash photos with the cellphone. One looked just fine, but when I zoomed in on the very end of the other tunnel, I gasped: There was a twist of the nylon tow rope that we sucked up last summer. Thought we got it all out, but apparently not.

My husband pulled off the impeller housing from the back -- he was SO HAPPY not to be standing on his head for this repair. There wasn't much rope, but what was there had essentially fused to some kind of black rubber ring that was about 1/2 wide. We had to cut the rubber ring off in order to remove all the nylon rope.

So what was that rubber ring? The diagram shows a small retaining ring, but this was wider than that. I'm going to try to post the photo of the rope as we found it so you can see exactly where it was. The impeller and wear rings actually look really good. I'm also attaching a photo of the driveshaft. We do have the rubber tip.

 

[racerxxx]

The rubber is the seal for the drive shaft so there is no water that intrudes into the splines, the Black plastic ring helps tighten that seal. Both parts will need to be replaced and grease the splines before reassembly. Don't worry about the blue plastic piece, you might want to try and cut it back but they are glued in in a few places and it makes it tough to remove them completely. Looks like my Speedster when I sucked it sucked a rope. Welcome to the rope of the month club!

 

[Arkansan]

Thanks, Racerxxx. The black plastic ring survived the ordeal. Do you happen to know the name or part number of the rubber seal?

 

[racerxxx]

The rubber boot is 271000516

The plastic ring is 271000517

They cost about $14 together and your dealer probably has them on hand or should be able to get them in a few days.


Items #2 and 45

 

[Arkansan]

Thank you so much! There's a dealer about 2 miles from my house, so I'll pop over there when they open on Tuesday. The #45 part looks to still be in perfect condition, but I'll take it will me to compare to a new one. Just in case. Then maybe we'll be on the water next weekend after all. It's always, always, always something with this boat... but when it's running, it is crazy fun.

 

[Guest_User]

those splines are dry and rusty, apply some waterproof grease if not SeaDoo synthetic grease to the splines and inside the impeller spline area to...

on the blue driveshaft protector.

I recommend removing them if they are broken, it could cause more grief down the road.
they are simple to remove. get a long thin tool, like a cake frosting spatula (I use a caulking spatula) and slip between the blue tube and the black thru hull fitting, you will feel the RTV silicone as you stick the tool in between, work your way around gentle cutting the silicone with the end of the spatula, this will also collapse the 4 prongs at the end of the blue tube, then grab it and pull it out when you are sure you cut all the silicone...

 

[Arkansan]

Thanks, Pale Rider. Yes, synthetic grease is on my shopping list, along with the rubber boot. Seadoo dealer doesn't open again until Tuesday morning. Don't those people understand that the weekend is when we all discover the parts we need, and then we need all week to get them and get them installed so that we can be back out discovering some new problem by Saturday?

As for the blue shaft protector... I'll mention that to my husband. That sounds like a pretty easy modification.

I just hope we can then get everything put back together properly. We paid close attention to what we were doing, kept the hardware, etc., in separate ziplock bags, etc. We're not complete idiots, but we are definitely learning things about this boat the hardest possible way.

 

[FinnExplorer]

Don't worry Arkansan... There are two kinds of Seadooers, those that have sucked in rope and those that haven't yet sucked in rope

 

[Arkansan]

And then there are those of us who suck in rope in one season and don't realize some of it is still there until the next season. But this certainly could explain a thing or two... Thanks, Finn.