Allright Ski Brain trust, question for all.

[Buckwild12]

I have a 2001 superjet, over the winter (I live in Maryland, it was a doosie this year!) my fire extinguisher that I had in my engine compartment exploded releasing all that nice "snow"/powder everywhere. now that spring is about to start springing, I discovered this situation when I opened the hood for the first time. I cleaned out as much of the powder as I could, I put in my battery and hooked everything up to fire it for the first time of the season. Now my ski is cranking very very slowly, and will not fire off. Could this be a failed starter? is it likely something else electrical, or is it a byproduct of the fire extinguisher incident. I have some time til the jetski weather really arrives, but I dont want to miss a day of it if I can help it. Any advice or suggestions to troubleshoot this would be immensely helpful.

 

[Matt_E]

Try a different battery first.
That powder is very corrosive. It may have corroded your battery and/or ground connections.

 

[Buckwild12]

i have another battery on order.

I am going to go put in some serious wrench time this weekend, so I am getting another battery to start there. If that isnt it, any other suggestions? Could that powder have gummed up the carb? what could I use to clean that thing out. this is pretty irritating, because I finally got the thing running perfect the last 2 weekends of the summer, now this. such is life, I guess wrench time is a never ending thing.

 

[Buckwild12]

also what could I use that is safe for the interior that will help clean up any remaining powder that I havent gotten yet? baking soda solution since that is a base? engine degreaser. I dont want to create a noxious compund that will kill me either, but I really really dont want this to dog my summer cause I was a tard and didnt pull the thing out, though I havent had a problem like this before in any of my other skis. The fact that it was so preventable is really what has me ticked..

 

[Matt_E]

A gummed up carb wouldn't cause slow cranking.

1. Remove the spark plugs and try cranking it (ground the plugs when you do this!). Any better? If it isn't, can you turn the engine over easily by hand?

2. If you can turn it easily by hand, inspect your electrical system - -battery, power and ground cables, and starter.

3. If you can't turn it over easily by hand, your pump or midshaft may have seized up. Remove the pump and see if you can turn it over by hand.

3b. You might pull the flywheel cover off to see if the bendix is stuck engaged to the flywheel.

4. If you still can't turn it over manually, it's time to remove the engine. If you still can't turn it over, time to tear into it.

 

[Buckwild12]

Thanks very much for your help Matt! im hoping that its something simple, but if it isn't this Board is a lifesaver! I wish it was the weekend already.

 

[steve1981]

battery is most likly your problem. and for clean up just use water and soap, just keep flushing it out when your done coat your motor and bedplates and mounts with some wd-40. good luck

 

[sdhunter123]

i had a similar problem on my 750sx about two weeks ago... i noticed quite a bit of corrosion where the ground connects to the block... i replaced all wires and battery... she fired right up afterwards...prob some kind of battery/power issue

 

[Buckwild12]

Ok update: Any ideas?

Ok finally last night I finally got a chance to put in a fresh new gel battery, cleaned up all the connections to the battery went to start it and it went click from what sounded like the E-box, tried it again, same thing. engine made no effort of looking as if it were trying to start. no crank whatsoever. So I pulled the plugs and tried to manually turn the engine over without luck. I am not going to say that I am hercules, and to be honest I dont know if I could crank this by hand if it werent having problems. I am all for ideas on things I should try as riding season is quickly approaching. a friend says that it could be a start/atop switch issue, I am not sure where the battery grounds into the block so im not sure if i can check that other than pulling the motor. is that actually necessary? any pointers? anything? Riding season is quickly returning to the mid atlantic, and if it werent for Easter this weekend, I would be spending the entire weekend under the hood of my SJ.

 

[GDFL]

It could be a couple things. Starter could be bad, impeller could be frozen in wear ring, low/weak battery, corrosion somewhere in the starter circuit, engine could have water in it and be locked up, and probably a couple other things. I would start with checking all the battery cables for corrosion at the connections. Then, take the starter off and hood it up directly to a battery. If that doesn't work, move the motor forward by taking the 4 bolts out of the motor mounts and carefully keep up with what motor shims went where. Pull the motor forward enough to clear the coupler and then you can determine if it is the pump or the motor. That covers most of the easy ones.

 

[Shifty]

If your plugs are out and you cant turn over the coupler under the black cover at the rear by hand.................... I would say its a pretty safe bet your motor is siezed up. Do you get any movement at the coupler? Try and work it back and forth a bit and see if you get any play. How did the plugs look when removed, nasty, corrosion, shiny and wet? The motor should turn over easily by hand (one hand reached under the couper). I mean you can't give it a good spin, but you can turn it a good 1/3 of the way though withought repositioning your hand.

"Pull the motor forward enough to clear the coupler and then you can determine if it is the pump or the motor."

That is a good point too, make sure its not your pump that is siezed up. I siezed pump will keep your engine from turning.

 

[Buckwild12]

I will look into it on Saturday am, does anyone know where the ground goes into the block? is that checkable? if its not something electrical Ill have to dive into the engine i guess, ive never tried that before but im not scared with all the help available on here. I dont know how water would have gotten into the motor, but I guess never say never. the plugs were a little nasty but i thought that may have been caused by fogging the motor. I tried the last test with brand new plugs if that helps, any and all other ideas would gladly be tried, keep em coming, ill ship a case of beer to the person who has the winning solution if that sweetens the pot.

 

[nightrider05]

Ground typically connects to the back of the starter on one of the 12mm bolts that holds the starter in place.

If it was cranking over real slow before..I highly doubt its going to be a locked up motor. You said in your first post it WAS cranking over.

 

[Buckwild12]

It did crank over very slowly during the winter.

I tried test firing it during December, and it turned over very slow. but then put it on the back burner of things I needed to do. Re-moldeling the house took priority. and I truely hope it is something as easy as that. Ill give it a shot and check the grounds, starter etc. Do you have to pull the motor to remove/test the starter. I dont know how the motor would have seized up on its own, but then again I dont know a whole lot about the internals of the motor......yet.

 

[Shifty]

First step would be to try and get your motor to spin over by hand. Pull plugs, take the black splash cover off (two 10mm bolts at rear of motor) optional. Try to turn over by hand back and forth........... if you get no movement pull four motor mount bolts and exhaust hose and slide motor forward to de-couple from coupler. Now try to turn the motor over by hand, this will rule out the possibility of the jetpump being frozen.

If your motor still will not budge by hand pull the front cover. I have had a motor that would not turn over and it turned out the flywheel was rusted to the stator because of water intrusion. You could check this before moving the motor forward if you wanted to. If both ends of the motor look clean and wont move, work you way into the motor via the head, etc.

You may have electrical issues as well but it takes no time at all to check for a locked up motor /pump. You will know right away if your motor is locked up just reach in and try to turn it.

 

[Buckwild12]

If this is the case do you have to replace the flywheel and stator? How did you fix the problem?

 

[Shifty]

Depending on severity, you may be able to wire wheel the inside of the flywheel with a fine wheel. My stator was fine but there was no way I was running the flywheel. I was swapping to 62T electrical anyway.

Just figure out if its the motor or pump that won't turn, then move forward one step at a time.

Good luck

 

[Buckwild12]

THANKS ALL! I'll try these and post with further findings, but if anyone has any other ideas I'd love to have a few other options if these dont work. im going to get cracking early on saturday AM I think.

 

[customride0105]

well if you need help im not that far away or i know of a shop thats very very close to you...

 

[Buckwild12]

thanks, I may take you up on it if I get in over my head.

Thanks custom ride, I may just take you up on that, but lets see what I can figure out on my own. Thanks very much for the offer though. Where do you ride?