37 replies to this topic

[tiggerman]

Here's the deal..... These carriers (or at least mine) get very hot- out of the water. The water acts like a heatsink, and cools the driveshaft and the backside of the carrier enough to keep the whole thing cool. This is no different than the carbon/stainless steel ring setup. They get very hot very quickly when you run them out of the water. I ran the boat all day yesterday with the carriers, and they did great. They still get very warm, but not nearly as hot as at first.

[secord]

Out of breathe just looking at it. I had to print it and review it several times.

Thanks for the how-to Tig.

[tiggerman]

breathe man!!!!!!! No problem.....I was worried at first that i had wasted my time..and yours cuz it was getting hot and I couldn't explain why. If there are any questions about ask!

[Bob86ZZ4]

Great thread here. What is that fitting going through the hull straight down next to your driveshaft? Something round and there is a aluminum plate attached to the fiberglass.

[tiggerman]

That is the weed grate control cable.

[tiggerman]

Bad news first.... Took the boat out by myself today.... had installed an OEM hose on one side. Get it in the water, get away from the dock, everything OK, right? Not. The WSM carrier is different in that it has no "barb" for the hose to grab on to. You guessed it. I get out of the no wake zone, gas it, and that engine hits the limiter. I look behind the boat, and very little jet when I gas it. So, I shut it off and take everything out of the storage and take the lid off. Water running in where the carrier has popped out of the hose. It still spins on the shaft, just won't stay in the hose. So I try again to tighten the clamp. Push the carrier in tighten the clamp, and it spits it out again. Put it in, tighten it not as tight, it stays. Until I crank it up and sit at idle- it slowly starts creeping out again. So, push it back in, tighten it up, use the other engine to go back to the dock and load it back up on the trailer. Oh yeah, the 500 GPH Rule in my bilge kept up quite nicely. Here's the good news:
It just so happens that I brought the OLD CARBON RING ASSEMBLY with me. Popped the pump off, snatched the carrier out and reinstalled the carbon ring stuff. Reinstalled the pump, pushed the bellows forward a bit to tighten it up, and put the boat back in the water. All in less time than it took this guy to get his BIG SKi Nautique on the trailer because it broke too.... Old reliable carbon ring..... got me through the day really nicely- sealed good too (I aligned the engines the other day) and would plane on either engine!!
I used the neoprene weather stripping I bought for .79 cents before I left to seal the pump housing with. When I took off the pump, it looked really good to see that it had actually sealed around the wear ring- I could see where it had compressed the neoprene. Sooooo.... a fun time was had by....me.
Will I stick with the carriers? Probably, if I can figure out how to make it stay in the hose. I thought about making a shallow notch in it with the dremel, all the way around it. Give it something to bite into.
Or, put the stiff hoses back on and call it a wash....
The other engine I had to put on the carbon ring seal again today after I took it off and realized I had cooked the rear seal out of it. I noticed the bearing was missing part of the race. Not good. So I put the old stuff back on and it works good. I'm glad I was by myself and not on a family outing- I would never hear the end of it.

[tiggerman]

Modification of WSM carrier by cutting a groove with Dremel tool so hose will stay on:

Attached Files

•  DSC00308.JPG   145.87KB   82 downloads

[uptil7000]

I did the retrofit last year and put about 20 hours on the doo last summer.

I spent a week on a houseboat at Lake of the Ozarks and put a bunch of hours in one weeks time.

I have had no problems at all.

[tiggerman]

Nice.... did you use all stock parts?

[tiddy82]

I did this mod on my '96 Challenger last year after reading the post from Tiggerman and others. Wow, what a difference. I had a hard time riding more than 3 people in my boat without cavitating. Now I can pull skiers out of the water no problem. If you use the same set up as tiggerman or I did, you will have to make a lip to keep the hose clamped on to the carrier. As far as the overheating issue, run synthetic grease in there and it will run cooler. Still very warm but you can touch it. Also, keep the carriers greased often. I add a squirt from the grease gun once every 5 times out or so depending on how hard I ride it. Just don't over grease it or you'll blow the seal out. If you do this mod, you won't be disappointed.

[zooterboy]

I have a 98 sportster 1800 and Im going to do this to my boat. I had already bought the carriers and just read i cant use my 3 groove shafts. Does anyone know what shafts I can use and maybe a part #? Are all the shafts different lenghts? Spline counts? There are a lot of Drive shafts on ebay for cheap but I need to know what to order. I know you can have them welded but I'd rather keep them orginal.

Thanks for any help.

[Kevin Leclair]

I have a 98 sportster 1800 and Im going to do this to my boat. I had already bought the carriers and just read i cant use my 3 groove shafts. Does anyone know what shafts I can use and maybe a part #? Are all the shafts different lenghts? Spline counts? There are a lot of Drive shafts on ebay for cheap but I need to know what to order. I know you can have them welded but I'd rather keep them orginal.

Thanks for any help.

Give World of Powersports a call, http://worldofpowersports.com -- I believe they should be able to provide a part # for you.

[zooterboy]

I already went to their website and looked at all the years and models of WaterCraft. i would have to use a Pre-95 driveshaft because after 95 they stared using the new style carbon ring seals. Therewere several different driveshaft part #'s for different years and models. I will try to call them tomorrow and hope one of them knows what shafts might work. I'm sure if they are like any of the dealers we have around here, all they want to tdo is look up the particular year of boat you have and say they dont know what else will fit. There are a couple salvage places i may call too and give them my dimentions on my shafts and see if they have anything that matches.

Kevin if you ever happen to take out your driveshafts again you might measure the length and how many splines it has for future records. I think i read you have a 96 or 98 challenger, maybe your could be the same as mine except for yours only had one groove. I wonder what the differance is between 1 or 3 groove shafts are? I think they all use the same Carbon ring setup.

[Kevin Leclair]

Best of luck, I hope you will be able to find something that will fit it.

This retrofit was done by another member, but if I ever do anything similar I will try to provide the measurements. We had a 2000 160 Speedster and now have a 2008 180 Challenger.

[PHN]

I ordered the complete carrier assemblies today from JetSkiMechanic.com
I had several options, either buy the parts and assemble them myself, or go ahead and get the carriers with seals and bearings. Buying the parts separate could cost more, actually- unless you shop around for aftermarket seals and bearings. Even then by the time you pay for the parts and shipping charges from the various parts vendors, the price could be about the same. You could be lucky and have a bearing shop local who has the bearings and seals in stock. The most expensive part in the assembly is the seals- assuming you go with the OEM from a Seadoo dealer. Even the dealers prices vary, with $13 - $24 dollars being the range.
When they get here, I will let you know how it goes!

How did you determine they were bad to begin with? I just bought a used Sportster 1800 and the starboard shaft seal/bearing seems totaly sloppy.

Paul

[mxphotog]

I have a few comments I would like to add to this.

I've been piecing back together my 1997 Speedster and found this post VERY helpful, thanks everyone who contributed to it!

I purchased the WSM bearings as well and the seals are a tight fit. So DO NOT skip the step about using the epoxy to fill in the clip groove. I ended up tearing one of my seals thinking I could just be careful and avoid this step.

I live in a small town so synthetic bearing grease was not something easy to come by. Got on Amazon and found Royal Purple Synthetic Ultra Performance Grease. It has good reviews, many about how it keeps the heat down pretty well. Seems like a good fit for this application so I am gonna give it a try.

My local automotive machine shop was able to help me with a couple of things. First was I had them cut grooves into the seal carriers where the hose clamped on using a lathe. It just seemed a little easier to have the machinist do this instead of messing with a Dremel. Second, I had the machine shop use their crank shaft polisher to cleaning up the bearing and seal surface of the drive shaft. The carbon seal and boot left it a bit messy. You should probably have them do this after applying the epoxy, this way they will remove any excessive epoxy while polishing the bearing and seal surface. None of this costs much, the machinist I know there did it all for a case of beer.

Also, just buy hard wall exhaust hose, I baught what was listed as the "Seadoo part number" from SBT and what I got was a couple of pieces of standard 1-5/8 inch hard wall hose that I could have bought from West Marine online for a third of the cost.

Hitting the lake next weekend. I will have this retrofit combined with new solas impellers, new wear rings, group k head work, fresh top ends with new pistons, and rebuilt carbs. Pretty excited to see how it all turns out!

[mxphotog]

So, the install went well.

I took the boat to the lake this weekend and it preformed amazing! The only thing was the hose clamps seem to loosen up a bit after about an hour of running. So be sure to keep an eye on that. Other then that everything went well.

I highly recommend this mod to anyone with an early speedster. The boat now has much better mid range power and hookup out of the water. Before the mods the boat could barely pull a 200lb wakeboarder out of the water, now it does this easily!

Also check out Group K for their 720 speedster mods, I am running their 91 octane heads and solas props. These combined with new wear rings and carrier bearings have really brought this boat to life!!

[teamjd]

I hate to revive an old thread, but there isn't much talk about this anymore, and any one who is interested in it probably has this bookmarked.

Since I did the carrier retrofit, I have had so much more boat vibration.
It appears the motor - shaft - pump alignment is not straight.
Is there a way to align the motor and shaft to get rid of the vibration?
It makes me uneasy feeling like something is going to fly apart while on the water.