water in cylinders

[tjd2536]

I have a 97 Seadoo GTX (787). I took it out for the first time this season last week. It ran great but it started taking on water in the hull (only when I was running it). I brought it home, let it dry out and hooked up the hose to search for a leak. I found the gasket on the headpipe leaking water. I tried tightening up the bolts and the leak slowed. Then I noticed water coming out of my airbox! I drained it, pulled the plugs and, turned it over to clear the water out. I put some 2 stroke oil in the cylinders to prevent the rings from seizing.

I'm guessing I have a head gasket leaking. It's never been overheated. I have good compression. Should I just replace the top end gaskets and the headpipe gasket? Or am I looking at bigger problems? Any advice/help/suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for your advice/help!

 

[JPX]

Well, you definitely have water in there now.

Good call on throwing some oil in there to protect what you can until you fix this.

At minimum, you are going to have to replace the gasket. You might as well prepare to do the head gasket along with the exhaust gasket.

Worst case scenario (and always easy to type from hundreds of miles away) is to tear down the engine for a rebuild.

But I think you could probably just replace the gaskets, clean out the mess and evacuate the water, and give it a shot. You could still get some decent use out of that engine yet.

In any case, it would be a good idea to take the top apart to see what is going on.