First day out of the season....now she is sick :-(

[hyoctane23]

Hey gang, I finally had a chance to take out the SL780 this past weekend. I had an absolute blast on it. Hell, it was more fun than what I remembered. I'll put on some pics from the weekend. Anywho, we left it in the water for the night because I was going to run it the next day, but at about 3:00AM I looked over and saw it was about half under water.

Oh crap! I thought to myself... I normally wouldn't be too worried about flooding the motor because I've done it before and everything came out good, but there is a small problem: The push button for the starter started to kind of short out towards the end of the day and the starter would randomly engage. It only did it a couple of times, and it hadn't done it for a while so I didn't think much of it. Well, as I was walking down, the motor tried to self distruct. The motor I know was full of water and it tried to start itself.

My step dad and I pulled the ski to the trailer and pulled it out and let it drain. I took the plugs off and did the usual turning over to get the water out. I did that for a while until there wasn't much coming out. I would put the plugs back on and crank it over but the plugs would foul out too quick. We then got 3 more plugs and tried it but now there is another problem...the starter seems to engage for only 1 crank, and then it free spins. It doesn't do it when the plugs are off, but only when it is under compression. So now we pretty much have a dead ski because we couldn't get it started. The battery is good and we had a charger on it with a power assist mode to help it start so I know the battery isn't the problem.

It does kind of hit a couple of times when we try to start with that one crank from the starter, but nothing sustains. Any ideas? I think I need to open up the electronics box and see if it needs to air out. Though is the starter toast if it only engages for one crank?

Here are some pics of the weekend. When I have the ski on its side, I am still hanging on and I use the thrust to right it back up and hop back on. I never fall off of it, I just hang on, so I am kinda proud of myself





SUBMARINE!!







Sideways dance...



Hangin' on for dear life!

[rgard32]

Well that has happened to me before...u get water in the motor..and the starter takes a dump or whatever reason it wont turn over.....the only thing i could think of at nite when its dark to save the motor is to fill that biatch with OIL right to the top..and rotate it over by hand....untill u have time to fix it so u can turn it over......its messy BUT what else can u do in the dark? lol....it just buys u some time.....cause if u dont get it running and no oil gets down on those bearings..it will be toast by tommorrow.

[beerdart]

There are drain bolts located in the crankcase just below the exhaust manifold down low.

[ph2ocraft]

GREAT PHOTO'S!!

Split the electrical box, I bet it's full of water. Remove the board and clean or replace if rusted. Replace the voltage regulator and for damn sakes, protect that crank!!!!

[hyoctane23]

We did pour quite a bit of oil down the plug holes so it is all well lubercated. When the starter did crank, the plugs were COVERED in oil so I really think the crank should be ok for now. I will crack the electrical box open and go from there