Reviving a 2006 Sportster 215 after sitting for 3 years

[evilruss]

Looking for suggestions on what all I should inspect or possibly replace on my Sportster after a few years sitting. Has right about 100 hours on it. After some reading, I'm a little worried about whether or not the intercooler may have had any water in it that could have frozen, so was planning to pull that out to clean and pressure test it. I've ordered an oil change kit with plugs, and already have a Seadoo rebuild kit for the supercharger on the shelf, as it was unknown if it had been rebuilt yet when I purchased the boat with around 80 hours on it. Will also be throwing in a new battery. Assuming it would also be a good idea to pull the jet drive apart to inspect things. The wear ring was just replaced when it was in for an oil change at 78 hours.

Thanks,
Russ

 

[evilruss]

So far I have installed a new battery I picked up over the weekend, partly cleaned up the interior, and started pulling the seat bottoms to replace the cracked up vinyl inserts with some new vinyl. I was also able to get the supercharger removed, and it looks untouched with the ceramic washers still in place. My order of isoflex should be here today, which should be the last item I needed to perform the rebuild. Once that's done I'll finish up the oil change and swapping the spark plugs.

Still contemplating on if the intercooler should be removed to look for any issues there. Seems like that one might be a better safe than sorry situation and just pull it out to be on the safe side to avoid any risk of hydro-locking.

 

[Mister Magoo]

Good catch on the SC. It will give you peace of mind now. I worked for a Bombardier dealership for a few years starting in 2005. We had so many brand new superchargers fail after just a few hours. 2 years or 100 hours is a good rule for the SC. My motto is "better safe than sorry" especially when sorry requires you to buy/rebuild an engine.

 

[evilruss]

Good catch on the SC. It will give you peace of mind now. I worked for a Bombardier dealership for a few years starting in 2005. We had so many brand new superchargers fail after just a few hours. 2 years or 100 hours is a good rule for the SC. My motto is "better safe than sorry" especially when sorry requires you to buy/rebuild an engine.

Thanks for the reply. Yeah I'd rather not risk the engine over the cost of a rebuild kit. How detrimental do you think it would be going more than 2 years on the kit if a person isn't putting 50 hours a year on the boat? Or maybe if a person rebuilds it in the spring and runs it 3 seasons on a rebuild, which would then really just be a little over 2 years total. Hoping to get it rebuilt this week yet.

 

[evilruss]

Trying to avoid redoing all the vinyl yet, so since mainly just the inserts on the seat bottom seem to be cracked at this point, I grabbed a yard of black marine vinyl to do a quick recover. Just trying to do a quick fix with a single piece each, but I think it looks alot better than the cracked vinyl and exposed fabric backing.

 

[Mister Magoo]

If I had a SC I would, myself, do a rebuild every 2 years, but I have a press and can do bearings easily. Read/search about the super chargers on this forum and on Greenhulk, there is a lot of info. About the seats I agree, I would rather fix individual seats rather than all at once. Watch out for black vinyl, it gets hot.

 

[evilruss]

Gotcha, I'll do some more reading. I also have a press if that does make the rebuilding process any easier.

Just mounted the supercharger to the support plate and vise, and was trying to check the current slip moment of the original components, and can't even get 1ftlb before the clutch is slipping. So makes me wonder if the discs are badly worn, or if the spring washers have completely lost their spring, being they are 14-15 years old at this point. Guess I'll get a better look once I disassemble it.