I purchased my 98 Sportster 1800 last September and decided not to test drive it because the salesman did a great job selling me this boat and come to find out it wasn't running properly and had cavitation. The salesman in Burlington, NC said the boat was purchased for a great price due to the seller said he couldn't figure out the cavitation. The Boat dealer I bought it from in Burlington said, "no problem, I'll take off your hands and fix it" He put new starters and wear rings in it and said that fixed it. So the next weekend after purchasing it towards the end of the summer, we loaded up ready for our first adventure on the lake as new first time boat owners and low and behold it barely started and barely ran in one motor and had cavitation on both motors, and one exhaust had a water leak. I never drove the boat because I was way too trusting of the dealer and the upholstery was really clean and it started up and ran good, at least I thought it ran good. This began my journey to make the boat in top operating condition with a lot of frustration and many hours in and out of the boat and many emails and phone calls to Waterluv.
So I ended up throwing a bunch of new parts at it instead of paying someone to figure it out for me and just fix the minimal and still have a bunch of old parts for the next thing to break. This way I also go to know the boat really well.
Here is what I did:
1. Two new Solas impellers
2. Rebuild drive shaft kits, but still starboard side had a gap between the carbon ring and the stainless hat thingy.
3. New universal fuel filters
4. New high volume fuel pumps
5. New fuel lines
6. New Fuel baffle
7. Hand pumped out 30 gallons of old fuel and replaced with new
8. Rebuilt both carbs only to come to find out one was the incorrect carb and had to buy another used carb.
9. Cut and weld up both exhausts on all 8 locations
10. Degrease whole entire engine bay and clean bilge
11. New steering cable
After all that I still couldn't get it to run right on starboard side and cavitation on Port side. At this point I gave up and took it to Champion Powersports to a Brian Baldwin who apparently was a champion jet ski rider or something and developed a good reputation for fixing and modifying all jet skis and jet boats. He did a great job and cost me $340 for him to replace a seal around the impeller housing to fix the cavitation at the carbon ring. He also rebuilt the accelerator pump and tuned carbs. I don't think it was that high since he did it quick and works great now.
See the pics below and as soon as I figure out how to upload the video I will upload that also. I couldn't find a lot of the older pics to see how dirty the engine bay.
So I ended up throwing a bunch of new parts at it instead of paying someone to figure it out for me and just fix the minimal and still have a bunch of old parts for the next thing to break. This way I also go to know the boat really well.
Here is what I did:
1. Two new Solas impellers
2. Rebuild drive shaft kits, but still starboard side had a gap between the carbon ring and the stainless hat thingy.
3. New universal fuel filters
4. New high volume fuel pumps
5. New fuel lines
6. New Fuel baffle
7. Hand pumped out 30 gallons of old fuel and replaced with new
8. Rebuilt both carbs only to come to find out one was the incorrect carb and had to buy another used carb.
9. Cut and weld up both exhausts on all 8 locations
10. Degrease whole entire engine bay and clean bilge
11. New steering cable
After all that I still couldn't get it to run right on starboard side and cavitation on Port side. At this point I gave up and took it to Champion Powersports to a Brian Baldwin who apparently was a champion jet ski rider or something and developed a good reputation for fixing and modifying all jet skis and jet boats. He did a great job and cost me $340 for him to replace a seal around the impeller housing to fix the cavitation at the carbon ring. He also rebuilt the accelerator pump and tuned carbs. I don't think it was that high since he did it quick and works great now.
See the pics below and as soon as I figure out how to upload the video I will upload that also. I couldn't find a lot of the older pics to see how dirty the engine bay.
