Sorry I'm late to this party. I just got home from a job. (was gone for a week)
All good brotha, hope the new job is great
OK... before we get too deep into things... what engine do you have? the 20' challenger could have the 200 Opti, or 240 EFI. That's a biggy as far as the hard start.
Its the merc m2 240hp EFI. I put that in the first post, but its hidden at the bottom after an edit about 5 mins after I made the post. Sorry about that
Speed and RPM seem good for either engine.
The "Beep-Beep" is concerning. Unfortunately... since Merc built the engine, and Seadoo built the rest of the electronics... there is some confusion on things. The light with the oil can isn't necessarily an oil warning. The icon should be a bell. The warning could be an over-temp, low oil, water in fuel, low voltage, or low fuel. over temp is a constant beep, so we can rule that out. Since it seems like bouncing trips it... then I would lean toward oil, or water in fuel. (or just a loose wire somewhere) SO.....
actually the lamp and beep sometimes STOPS beeping/lamp goes out, if I turn the boat to the right and sometimes the beeping stops/light goes out if I hit a wake. Not always, but sometimes
1) Check over all the wires by the engine, and look for anything loose. OR... open, and re-seat any plugs you can see. Sometimes you just get a little corrosion, and pulling connections apart fixes them.
Ill do that, makes sense. lots of vibration and condensation. Wouldnt be a bad idea to go ahead and dialectric everything while Im in the connections
2) There are 2 tanks for oil on your engine. One is the main tank, and there isn't a sensor in it. The sender is in the header tank. Make sure it's full. If the oil has dye in it (most do) the tank could be stained, so make sure... 100% it's full. The oil sender almost never goes bad, but it can be checked with a meter. (it's a simple switch)
Before going any further, I have seen the oil level(in main tank) go down and the boat has the typical 2 stroke smokey exhaust. Im certain its getting oil BUT as you said that doesnt mean its not a level sensor for the oil. For what its worth and if it helps having more info, I get the beeping even without the engine running. I removed the cap, held the float up and just key on/engine off and still get the beeping. Ill ohm it out to make sure the sensor itself isnt bad. Something I noticed, which so far hasnt made a difference, other than the beeping/light doesnt stop even if i turn or hit wakes, when i filled the main tank, it releaved pressure. Is there anything I have to do to represureize or does it do it on its own once the engine starts?
3) The water in fuel sender is in the bottom of the spin on filter. (it's a filter/water trap) Since the boat is new to you, I would get a new filter. Draining it almost never gets all of the water out. The new filter will come with a new sender. The easy way to check it is to pull the wire off the bottom, and go for a ride.
I figured thats how that worked so I unplugged it and beeping/light still on
Regardless... we need to isolate where the issue is. You don't want to burn up the engine over something simple.
Agreed, its always the ID10T problems that cost the most to fix lol
As far as the hard restart.... as Coastie said... without a doubt... the bilge fan is your friend. AND, the Merc boats are less tolerant to bad air. When I first put my boat back together... I would fight hard re-starts. Then I realized I needed to run the fan... my engine will re-start with a 1 second crank. Also, as mentioned... if you have the 240 engine... that engine has 2 temps senders. The one on the port side of the engine is actually tired into the TPS, and is used to "Trim" the fuel. When it goes bad, the fuel goes rich, and re-starts are a pain. Also... it will be EXTRA smoky, and burn more fuel. (But 2-strokes are smoky when cold regardless) Now... to your comment about moving a temp sender from an aluminum intake... well... that's just silly. BECAUSE... both temp senders are in the heads on your engine. (and heat soak wouldn't be an issue if you would wrap your racecar's exhaust)
First off, good catch on the temp sensor getting heat soaked and isolating it from the head. I had been drinking and was refering to auxilery pressure sensors, they are heat sensitive. I actually caught it the next day but noone else mentioned it so I didnt bother to edit. Blame Fireball on that one. (and the cars I build actually do have head coated and wrapped, there 1000+ turbo inline 6 engines).
Getting back on track, I have read about the 3 wire temp sensor going bad and causing it to run rich. This could very well be my issue. I can smoke up a dock with 2 stroke oil on a restart lol! I tried the fan, didnt fix. I even opened the cover, letting nothing but fresh air in and its not much/if any better at restarts. If I give it a little throttle that seems to help some but usually letting it sit a few mins helps more than anything. Im really leaning towards temp sensor at this point and checking everything else that can be adjusted. In my experience people will start tweaking anything that can be adjusted, normally by eye or by ear vs setting to manual specs so I wouldnt be suprised if things are misadjusted by this point. It does however seem to get up on plane and take the fuel pretty good
Unlike a car... these engines are always wet... so before replacing starter parts... I would just clean the connections at the starter, and solenoid.
Unfortunately the starter bendix gear has seen better days. The root cause is the solenoid, I jumped it and the starter turns. Good and bad news, good news is Im sure the solenoid is the root cause, bad news is the bendix gear has so much wear it will sometimes stick to the flywheel teeth. Afraid both need to be replaced at this point to do a complete fix. Would be nice to find a replacement bendix, but sometimes its not available seperate.
What's left.....
OK... the pulling to the right is kind of normal. It can be adjusted by tweaking the ride plate. There are 2 screws that will allow you to adjust it. you can also drop it down some to help with the high-speed bounce. BUT... just moving a passenger to the front will normally take care of that too. (generally it's a balance problem)
I actually recentered the stearing and it now pulls slightly to the left, Ill just split the difference with the adjustments I made and it should be about as good as its gonna get. A lot of my issue is the bushing on the "cone" bottom is missing, so the cone is allowed to move up and down more than normal. Ill make a bushing and install it without removing the "cone" so that will help a lot and may even fix the issue below
AND... as far as the control lever bouncing... that's normal in a tight turn, but not if you are going straight. If it is... it's not locking in the up position. It may just need an adjustment.
I adjusted as much as I could, its much better but I can still see it vibrate slightly. This could very well be fixed once I install the new bushing. Ill make it out of composite bearing material. Its a little stiffer than eurothane and Ive had great luck with bushings made out of it in the past (I actually own a machine fabrication shop, so machining new parts or modifying parts is not an issue)
Anyway... hope that gives you a place to start.
