ride plate seal

[chlarson23]

I was checking out my boat yesterday, trying to narrow down the cavitation issue and i noticed my ride shoe is only sealed on the front where the water is sucked in. My question is; if my ride shoe isn't sealed all the way around could it be the cause of my problems. my carbon ring looks good and i have one on order anyway and if not the ride shoe than i guess it has to be the wear ring and/or impeller. anyone know if the seal has to go all the way around or just towards the front of the boat. There is a clear gap towards the back but it doesn't start until after the water passes the impeller.

 

[Phildoo]

It should be sealed around the whole plate where it meet.
Pull back the carbon seal and put a blob of waterproof grease in there. Then test run it. If it is better then that's it. It creates a temporary seal.

 

[chlarson23]

i'm gonna do the grease for sure, i'm hoping that the problem is the ride plate cause my boat has very few hours on it, however it is a 2005 and it's my experience that stuff that sits a long time tends to need more work than stuff that's been used on a regular basis. thanks for your input, gonna do the ride plate seal for sure and we'll see how the ring works out this weekend.

 

[chlarson23]

So upon close inspection of my impeller and ring, it would appear that the previous boat owners were not familiar with jet boats. It looks to me that they were those people that would beach their boat and punch it in 12 inches of water to get it up on the beach further. there were cut ski ropes in the boat when i bought it and they weren't even sure how to launch it, i did everything. Good thing it wasn't my first boat. Gonna get the new impeller and ring hopefully soon and get them replaced. while i have it apart i'm gonna do the carbon ring just in case and then i'll take care of the boat like it should have been and everything will be fine. I'll update when i get the stuff, it may be a month or two since i'm in the army and pay sucks, but thank god i can fix my own stuff and save a couple of bucks.