Jet ski advice

creepycrawly · Jul 3, 2017

Yeah, it's definitely getting swapped. If it's premixed, I know it's got oil. I am not opposed to mixing it a little rich and keeping plugs on hand. $7.50 worth of plugs is cheaper than top ends.

Jon Piper · Jul 3, 2017

Rjhoward32006 said:
Do not convert to pre mix, as it has an oil pump for a reason. Pre-mix will work but does not always lubricate as well. Sometimes the oil lines get hard and shrink and come off but easy enough to buy some cheap oil lines, replace them amd rock on.

Why do you feel it will not always lubricate as well ?

WHIZARD · Jul 3, 2017

rednecklights said:
Why do you feel it will not always lubricate as well ?

Only reason I can think of is if someone doesn't know how to pre-mix.

RandysMJ · Jul 3, 2017

creepycrawly said:
Yeah, non ethanol is absolutely a must. And the previous owner claims to have been running it. My only concern right now is they've been running quicksilver synthetic oil in it. I know some of the older HO seadoos were very particular about the oil they needed. I am hoping I can drain that crappy oil out and get some decent oil in it and be ok. Like I said, it runs pretty good. I just picked up plugs for it this morning. Gonna pull the air filter and see what kinda shape it's in too.

I always ran Quicksilver oil in my 96 Polaris. Never had any issues with it.

TacomaJD · Jul 4, 2017

Re:

A good friend of mine has a nice jet ski for sale. He is very meticulous with his **** and doesn't buy any junk. He is who I bought my old Z06 vette from. Dabbles in Audi sportscars and Ducati motorcycles (I say that to say this: I don't know **** about watercrafts, but I know anything he has is tip top shape). Let me know if anyone is interested and I will put you in contact with him.

Don't know why that's blurry...maybe this pic is clear.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

red94yj · Jul 4, 2017

creepycrawly said:
Yeah, it's definitely getting swapped. If it's premixed, I know it's got oil. I am not opposed to mixing it a little rich and keeping plugs on hand. $7.50 worth of plugs is cheaper than top ends.

Congrats on your purchase.

I too hiiiighly recommend you convert to premix. Me and friend got into skis when he got a lake house. We started on Kawasaki x2s. He has bought and sold probably 15 to 20 skis since then. Most every ski he bought that didn't run, was due to the oil pump failing or the lines popping off or the lines just fell apart from non-use or age. Get a block off plate and run premix, I promise you will never have a problem with eliminating the oil pump.

You bought a nice ski, if you do buy another, there are plenty of folks who will let you test their ski on the water, a ski can run fine out of water but once in the water and it has a load on it, it may not run right. Always look for a ski that you can water test.

Also if you I wanna go fast, look at the Kawasaki ultra 150s or stxr 1200. Very very fast skis, a little finicky, will foul plugs if you idle to long, but run like a race horse up top. A little modification and it will beat most any ski on the water even the new 250 and 300s

2 stokes for life

creepycrawly · Jul 4, 2017

red94yj said:
Congrats on your purchase.

I too hiiiighly recommend you convert to premix. Me and friend got into skis when he got a lake house. We started on Kawasaki x2s. He has bought and sold probably 15 to 20 skis since then. Most every ski he bought that didn't run, was due to the oil pump failing or the lines popping off or the lines just fell apart from non-use or age. Get a block off plate and run premix, I promise you will never have a problem with eliminating the oil pump.

You bought a nice ski, if you do buy another, there are plenty of folks who will let you test their ski on the water, a ski can run fine out of water but once in the water and it has a load on it, it may not run right. Always look for a ski that you can water test.

Also if you I wanna go fast, look at the Kawasaki ultra 150s or stxr 1200. Very very fast skis, a little finicky, will foul plugs if you idle to long, but run like a race horse up top. A little modification and it will beat most any ski on the water even the new 250 and 300s

2 stokes for life

Thanks man. It was on the lake already when I showed up to buy it so I got to ride it. It was a little hard to start but ran decent.

Swapped plugs out last night, topped it off with fresh 89 non ethanol today and put about 4 hours on it. It ran great all day long. The only thing I have found that doesn't work is the bilge pump and I am not sure that isn't operator error.

I can't get over how clean the ski is. Today was the first time it had ever seen salt water. I stopped and put it in the river today after the gulf just to get a full power fresh water rinse. Then came home and cleaned it up pretty well with the hose. I don't have the attachment to hook the hose up to it, so I gotta grab one this week. We had a blast.

It definitely doesn't handle rough water as well as my buddy's VX cruiser waverunner, but man this thing scoots. It definitely goes fast enough that I don't want to hit the water wide open. I can't imagine one of those 300hp units, but I also don't want the added maintenance. They can't be THAT much faster. The better fuel economy of the 4 stroke would be super nice, but I am happy with mine for what I have in it.

Rjhoward32006 · Jul 5, 2017

rednecklights said:
Why do you feel it will not always lubricate as well ?

Probably not as bad to do it on a yamaha as a seadoo but the oil pumps on these do not go out.
Its a one in a million chance. People claim they they go out but its usually just old lines that come off.

Yamaha runs reed valves on the intake which do not need oil but on a seadoo the engine runs a rotary valve, this valve is timed to the engine and spins very fast.
Pre mix comes no where close to giving it enough oil. Also the bottom end "roller bearings" do not get enough oil as it actually scavenges out of the bottom of the case. Thus creating the bottom end to wear out pre mature and go bang.

It was designed with an oil pump for a reason....

Rjhoward32006 · Jul 5, 2017

WHIZARD said:
Only reason I can think of is if someone doesn't know how to pre-mix.

You my friend must not know much about two stroke watercraft. I'm not a genious but i did work on them for six or seven years so i've seen and dealt with most of these issues.

WHIZARD · Jul 5, 2017

Rjhoward32006 said:
You my friend must not know much about two stroke watercraft. I'm not a genious but i did work on them for six or seven years so i've seen and dealt with most of these issues.

You're correct my friend, I don't know much at all about two stroke watercraft.

I was just going of my knowledge of years of racing two stroke motorbicycles. After reading your explanation, I realize that I absolutely don't know **** about two stroke watercraft except that I had a POS SeaDoo one time.

The Luke · Jul 5, 2017

I've never had a jet ski. But dad just bought an old bayliner jazz for basically nothing off Facebook. It looks and runs like brand new. It's got a little 2 stroke merc 90 in it. Doesn't quite have the power to get two big fellas up to speed without being pretty creative with weight distribution(diving on the nose at full throttle to get it to plane out then doing a 30mph jump to your seat). But with 1 giant or two small people on there, It's an absolute blast. I spent most of yesterday doing 360's and nose dives in it.

The-Boss · Jul 5, 2017

Rjhoward32006 said:
Probably not as bad to do it on a yamaha as a seadoo but the oil pumps on these do not go out.
Its a one in a million chance. People claim they they go out but its usually just old lines that come off.

Yamaha runs reed valves on the intake which do not need oil but on a seadoo the engine runs a rotary valve, this valve is timed to the engine and spins very fast.
Pre mix comes no where close to giving it enough oil. Also the bottom end "roller bearings" do not get enough oil as it actually scavenges out of the bottom of the case. Thus creating the bottom end to wear out pre mature and go bang.

It was designed with an oil pump for a reason....

Learn something new all the time. The Yamaha skis and other 2 stroke outboards I have been around had oilers for ease of use. Still not aware of any other reason. That was the reason I was speaking to. As far as pump failure, I was lumping hose failure in since it is a system failure with the same result. I have friends that have ran Rotax engines but I never have. Definitely a different animal by the sound of it. That is good info.

scrambled · Jul 6, 2017

Rjhoward32006 said:
Probably not as bad to do it on a yamaha as a seadoo but the oil pumps on these do not go out.
Its a one in a million chance. People claim they they go out but its usually just old lines that come off.

Yamaha runs reed valves on the intake which do not need oil but on a seadoo the engine runs a rotary valve, this valve is timed to the engine and spins very fast.
Pre mix comes no where close to giving it enough oil. Also the bottom end "roller bearings" do not get enough oil as it actually scavenges out of the bottom of the case. Thus creating the bottom end to wear out pre mature and go bang.

It was designed with an oil pump for a reason....

Not all Seadoos are rotary

sparepartsdave · Jul 6, 2017

the guys I rent my shop from run a jet ski rental business. They have 27 skis, all Yamaha 4 stroke. They have the absolute crap run out of them 7 days a week, 10 hours a day. They maintain their stuff good and service them themselves. They'll put a head on one twice(around 1000-1500 hours each time), then replace the long block as a whole. They've had good luck with the 4 cylinder four strokes, but last year, Yamaha dropped that engine and replaced it with a three cylinder of the same hp. They bought four of them, two have already blown up

creepycrawly · Jul 6, 2017

sparepartsdave said:
the guys I rent my shop from run a jet ski rental business. They have 27 skis, all Yamaha 4 stroke. They have the absolute crap run out of them 7 days a week, 10 hours a day. They maintain their stuff good and service them themselves. They'll put a head on one twice(around 1000-1500 hours each time), then replace the long block as a whole. They've had good luck with the 4 cylinder four strokes, but last year, Yamaha dropped that engine and replaced it with a three cylinder of the same hp. They bought four of them, two have already blown up

My buddy scored a killer deal on a 2015 Yamaha VX Cruiser with 9 hours on it for $8,000. That's just more than I wanted to spend on a ski, but it's super nice. I was amazed at how much better the 3 seater handled open water.

CHASMAN9 · Jul 7, 2017

creepycrawly said:
My buddy scored a killer deal on a 2015 Yamaha VX Cruiser with 9 hours on it for $8,000. That's just more than I wanted to spend on a ski, but it's super nice. I was amazed at how much better the 3 seater handled open water.

Just picked up a pair of 2017 VX Cruisers and love em. You are right about the ride, they handle like night and day compared to my SeaDoo RXP. They might not be a 100mph rides but don't need that kind of speed out of them. :dblthumb:

ADMINISTRATOR

creepycrawly · Jul 7, 2017

CHASMAN9 said:
Just picked up a pair of 2017 VX Cruisers and love em. You are right about the ride, they handle like night and day compared to my SeaDoo RXP. They might not be a 100mph rides but don't need that kind of speed out of them.

ADMINISTRATOR

When you gonna stop effing around and adopt me?

On a side note, that ski my buddy bought...just makes me wonder what is wrong with this new generation of kids. It is a 2 year old ski with 9 hours on it because it was bought for a 14 year old by his grand parents. He lives local and they live in Destin across the street from the beach in a fancy Tony Bolton type neighborhood. (We literally saw an Audi R8 roll past as we were hooking the trailer up). Anyhow, this little peter puffer rode it twice and didn't want anything else to do with it.

What heterosexual male 16 year old doesn't want to take his own jet ski to crab island every day?!

CHASMAN9 · Jul 7, 2017

creepycrawly said:
When you gonna stop effing around and adopt me?

On a side note, that ski my buddy bought...just makes me wonder what is wrong with this new generation of kids. It is a 2 year old ski with 9 hours on it because it was bought for a 14 year old by his grand parents. He lives local and they live in Destin across the street from the beach in a fancy Tony Bolton type neighborhood. (We literally saw an Audi R8 roll past as we were hooking the trailer up). Anyhow, this little peter puffer rode it twice and didn't want anything else to do with it.

What heterosexual male 16 year old doesn't want to take his own jet ski to crab island every day?!

Sometimes you find those deals like the one I got on my Tige' wakeboard boat. Dad bought for his daughter 21' ($70k+)comp boat to play around with, and 8 years later, she still had never stepped foot into it. I ran across it at a marina and gave the owner a call and agreed on $18k with only 12 hours on it, and those were from marina doing annual start ups on it. I guess she showed daddy that his money can't buy everything. So I sold it a few years later for $40k and got me something else. :****:

ADMINISTRATOR

creepycrawly · Jul 7, 2017

CHASMAN9 said:
Sometimes you find those deals like the one I got on my Tige' wakeboard boat. Dad bought for his daughter 21' ($70k+)comp boat to play around with, and 8 years later, she still had never stepped foot into it. I ran across it at a marina and gave the owner a call and agreed on $18k with only 12 hours on it, and those were from marina doing annual start ups on it. I guess she showed daddy that his money can't buy everything. So I sold it a few years later for $40k and got me something else. :****:

ADMINISTRATOR

Must be nice. Why can't I run across deals like that??