29 replies to this topic

[Kevin Leclair]

Well we took our 210 Wake out for the first time this season, only 1 hr on each engine. We were out for about 3 hours putting about an hour and a half on each engine. We were cruising back to the boat ramp at about 25mph when I stopped briefly to secure the bimini cover since was flapping in the wind. I did not cut the engines, I just left it in neutral. Once I was ready to go again, I throttled up and had no power with a fair amount of vibration so I immediately cut the engines.

I started the the starboard engine and it seemed okay. Then I started the port engine, it was definitely not normal, no power and lots of vibration. We ended up limping back to the dock on the starboard engine. At this time the port engine was reporting a engine temp of 190 degrees while the starboard was reporting 183 degrees. One the way back running on the starboard engine only the engine temp remained at 183 degrees but I kept the RPMs below 3.5. I did not want to push even this engine since I did not know what was going on. On the way back the engine light came on a couple of times and went back off within about 3 - 5 seconds so I was thinking this was due to the engines not communicating with one another.

I put the boat back on the trailer, now I have about 2.5 hours on the port engine and 3 hours on the starboard engine. I crawled under the boat to look for damage in the intake grates, but to the naked eye everything looks fine with the shaft and the impellers. When I got home I hooked the water hose up to the port engine, it definitely sounds like something is loose. Sounds like clanking, metal-on-metal, not a healthy noise.

I am really at a lose of what could of happened, we looked in the water as it felt that we might have ingested something in the intake grate but everyone that was in the boat said there was nothing around while we were sitting there. Also the boat was in neutral so I do not think we would of sucked something up then.

All the dealers are closed here on Monday, but I am really anxious to figure out what the heck is going on. It really has me baffled to what the issue is on a brand-new boat. The boat was serviced for all the outstanding service campaigns last year, http://seadoosportbo...ns-on-210-wake/, and it was lake tested. Everything checked out fine.

I am bummed that this happened on our first "real" time out in the new boat. Also the closest dealer is about 2 hours from us so that is another thing I am not looking forward too.

I will keep you guys posted, as there is another powersports dealer that is about 10 minutes from us that SeaDoo now lists as a dealer now but I am not sure if they have technicians certified to work on the sport boats. If so, that would be great - otherwise I have to make a trip to Lake Oconee just to get it looked at.

[kseroski70]

That's horrible. But even in neutral there is a lot of suction going on. I picked up a flat rock about the size of my fist last year just idling off shore.

Hope you get it fixed.

[stevesteinberg]

Sorry to hear that:( I had something similar happen to my 95 speedster last year, limped it back to the dock, got it on the trailer and saw nothing in the intake that was clogging it. Didn't hook it up to the hose but next time I put it in the water everything was fine, seemed to fix itself. Hopefully its nothing major.

[Kevin Leclair]

That's horrible. But even in neutral there is a lot of suction going on. I picked up a flat rock about the size of my fist last year just idling off shore.

Hope you get it fixed.

Yeah I knew there was some but did not realize it was that much. This was my thoughts and definitely what it felt like but the grates were both clear so if there is something in there it must have made it to the jet pump and I can't see it.

Thanks.

[gmt]

Kevin,

Back in 1998 I had one of the first Challenger 1800's with dual engines. One day I had a bad vibration in one of the engines and had to limp home on one good engine. Put the boat up on the trailer and could not see anything obvious. But on close inspection of the impeller I saw a small wood chip lodged between the impeller edge and the side wall of the impeller housing. It was jammed in there. I gently broke it apart piece by piece with needle nose pliers until it broke apart enough that I could spin the impeller and the rest fell out. I am talking about a small chip of wood that was thin and only about 2 inches long.

After that the engine ran fine.

I hope you have a simple problem.

Gordon

[Kevin Leclair]

So here's the update, I decided to give it another look this afternoon out of frustration. Not sure how this was not visible when we came home Saturday but maybe it was because we looked prior to hooking the boat up to the hose and started the engines after looking in the intake grate and seeing that it was clear. Once we started the boat it did not sound healthy as you can see from my initial post so I shut the engines and gave up for the evening.

Well I am guessing that when I did that, it jarred this loose (see below).

 P1000472.JPG   661.16KB   173 downloads  P1000477.JPG   671.61KB   161 downloads

As you can see now when I took another look, it is not clear. You can see there is a piece of pine bark that is wedged between the impeller and the housing. You can see this clearly from looking into the nozzle and now barely see it when looking into the intake grate. I am guessing when we looked on Saturday it was wedged in between the impeller blades where it was out of sight.

Even though this doesn't look good, I am hopeful that it will be an easy fix once we can free the piece of pine bark. I tried for about an hour tonight with no luck, I just can not get enough leverage in there without taking either the nozzle or the intake grate off. With that being said, I would rather leave it up to the SeaDoo technician just to ensure there is no further damage since the boat is still under warranty.

I have made an appointment with Gainsville Motorsports this Friday but will most likely have to leave it with them for a week since they are pretty backed up so I will keep you guys posted with what they find once they are able to free the piece of pine bark.

[gmt]

Kevin,

As described in my post, that is almost exactly what happened to me in 1998. The piece of wood in yours looks a little bigger than the piece that caused me problems.

In my case, once the wood was out, there were no futher problems. It did not affect the rotation or the balance of the impeller.

Good luck with the extraction.

Gordon

[AmongstTheWaves]

Kevin,
Will Sea Doo cover a grate with more tines in it? Based on your pictures above it looks like something much bigger than that piece of wood could get sucked in eventually.

Scott

[Kevin Leclair]

This is a very good question, after getting under there I agree the tines are quite far apart. Seems like they should be closer together but I do not know what effect that would have on the flow of water.

It does bother me how easy we were able to ingest something, especially just sitting there in neutral. And I am with you, it has me wondering what else we might ingest over the years with them being this far apart - I mean I can almost stick my hand up there so they are a good 2 - 3 inches apart.

[AmongstTheWaves]

I "upgraded" my Challenger 2000 with the grate with more tines just for my own piece of mind. But I'm also long far away from having a warranty to worry about.

[davo]

Hi, i am no expert, but I've collected a chunk of wood on a lake last spring. Came out easy, but after that I simply never idle the boat in neutral. If the boat moves either fwd or back I think the boat's effect on the water will disperse most foreign objects out of the way before it gets to the grate. If I'm slowing down to dock, the reverse should flush debris out from under the boat too. Once stopped, I shut the donks down immediately. There's a lot of rubbish, weeds & sticks where I am sometimes, & have never since had an issue--touch wood(sorry about the pun).

Kevin, hope there's no damage from the wood. Good that you had the other engine. I didn't know before that you could slowly operate the one engine... that's good to know.

cheers

[Kevin Leclair]

Well I received an update today, the boat is going to be at the dealer for another week because they were not able to get to yet. The update is this little stick tore up the wear ring on the port side so I will have to replace it. Not the news I wanted to hear on a brand new boat.

Not much I can do, I will keep you guys posted. In the meantime I snapped a pictured of the new 2011 230 Wake, sharp looking boat.

http://seadoosportbo...-2011-230-wake/

[LTM501]

My Speedster inhaled a piece of wood and lodged it upright so tightly against the impeller that it charred the wood even in the water. Like you, I didn't have any tools long enough to get enough leverage to pry the wood out. I put an 18" extension on a 1/4" drill bit and carefully drilled holes in the piece of wood until it finally fell apart and came back out through the grate. Now I carry a long 1/4" diameter aluminum rod, a waterproof flashlight, and a dive mask so I can pry items out while the boat is in the water.

[kseroski70]

Sorry about the luck.... Seems it should be our #1 complaint to Sea-Doo - "Need better intake protection"

GREAT looking boat though!

[Kevin Leclair]

Thanks, yeah this on my list of things to discuss with them.

[gmt]

Regarding "intake protection": It must be an interesting problem for the SeaDoo engineers working with a jet pump system. How small can you make the "gaps" in a intake grate before you either impede water flow or cause a disruption in the water flow that would lead to early cavitation problems?

I don't know the answers, but I wonder if the engineers have looked at the problem and if trying to make "small gaps" in the intake grate, small enough to prevent small wood chips from being sucked in, causes performance problems?

Kevin, do you know if this has been tested from an engineering standpoint at SeaDoo?

Gordon

[Kevin Leclair]

Well we finally picked up the boat yesterday. Brand new wear ring installed on the port side with only 2.5hrs on the engine. We took the boat to Lake Lanier, GA yesterday, everything ran great so we are happy to be back on the water!

Here is a short video of me doing a little wakeboarding for the first time this season, getting back into the swing of it.


Also here are a few pictures we took while we were out.
http://seadoosportbo...anier-may-2011/

[328iGuy]

Well I received an update today, the boat is going to be at the dealer for another week because they were not able to get to yet. The update is this little stick tore up the wear ring on the port side so I will have to replace it. Not the news I wanted to hear on a brand new boat.

Not much I can do, I will keep you guys posted. In the meantime I snapped a pictured of the new 2011 230 Wake, sharp looking boat.

http://seadoosportbo...-2011-230-wake/

THIS must be the custom trailer for the 2011 models, hopefully like mine to arrive soon. I like the wheels, they are sharp looking.

[Kevin Leclair]

Yep, that is the custom trailer on a 2011 230.

[vbpete]

Kevin,
I had a similar issue with my 2010 Challenger 210. I took it out for the first time this week (0 hrs on boat). I got 100' away from the ramp and the engine maintenance light came on for both engines. I also noticed excessive vibration and noise. I took the boat out away from the no-wake area and tried accelerations and played around with stopping and starting each engine. Found the port engine was the source of the vibration. I brought the boat home and checked the inlets and outlets and found no debris and no significant damage to the wear ring (althought the port wear ring looks like it has some scuff marks).

Took the boat to the dealer yesterday. He cleared the maintenance lights lights - he said it is unknown why they came on. All s/w recall campaign fixes had been applied. He also had no diagnosis for the vibration/noise. His comment was that there are just some differences in engine-to-engine. I took the boat out again to a local lake and noticed it definately pulls to the port side even though the engines are synced. This indicates that the port engine is not putting out the same flow as the starboard.

At this point, the dealer is suggesting I just keep using the boat and see if it gets better/worse. He said there will always be slight differences in engines/pumps. I will keep you posted on my saga.