Cooling line on off valves

[Vortex]

This may be a dumb idea but I had a motor fill up with water from towing a ski that broke down in the surf. The free spinning prop pressurized the cooling system, and water from the headpipe flowed into the engine.

Im thinking some type of valve would fix this without much trouble, maybe a manual on off valve on the dash or even an electronic valve tied into an ignition sourced switch.

 

[speedysprocket]

More stuff to break or go wrong.
And a check valve wouldn't work because water in the towing situation still flows the same direction as when it's running.
If you have a B-Pipe that caused this problem, consider closing the top screw. Any other source of water getting into the pipe would likely take hours of towing before it could flood the exhaust enough to get into the cylinders...

 

[Vortex]

Thanks Alex, I should say just an on off valve not a check valve.

I definitely had the top screw open. Great observation. I will just open the bottom screw from now on.

 

[McDog]

Cooling line water wouldn't get into your engine unless there is physical damage to it somewhere. What are the odds of that? It could be enough pressure to flow into stinger of pipe though, and that could make its way back into the engine, but it would seem that it would be slow.

 

[Vortex]

Cooling line water wouldn't get into your engine unless there is physical damage to it somewhere. What are the odds of that? It could be enough pressure to flow into stinger of pipe though, and that could make its way back into the engine, but it would seem that it would be slow.

Its not that slow, i was less than a mile away, especially if you're being towed by another ski thats blipping the throttle to get some fuel/oil flow

 

[Proformance1]

agreed, but if youre talking about surf and a stand up how would you open the hood to flip the valve. Tough to do in tight surf conditions, youre better off to save the ski and un hydrolock the motor than to sink it and try and save it. Especially in fresh water. IMO. Been there. Now for sitdowns we have added a ball valve for this specific reason. On stand up feartheride has used quick release fittings to make the feed to the motor go right overboard without going to the motor for towing distances on flat water days when he would like to take two skis.

 

[McDog]

It is possible to do it with a valve through the bulkhead like the fuel selector on a oem superjet.

 

[tightithrash]

I'm thinking about doing valves. I just towed a friend back and we were worried about water coming in from being towed.

We decided to tow back as slow as possible since when we tow at high speed, it's like a 50/50 chance water goes in the engine.

We went so slow and it took forever. Got back and pulled the plugs. Ski was swamped......

I can see the argument "another thing to go wrong" but, how.... It's a valve...

I also understand the argument of just towing it and un sinking it back at the ramp but, usually we go to the beach to try and fix the problem before we tow anyway so if your on the beach and you decide it can't be fixed, just close the valve and tow home.

It's super lame having a swamped 10mm stroker motor in the first place. Let alone an engine that is swamped and due to an issue of it getting towed in the first place, it can't get running with out some serious work and is now on a race against the clock to either fix the problem then get it running then put it back in the water or decide to either fill the engine with oil, or disassemble the motor entirely to save the crank.

Example, I just had a ski that had an electrical melt down and would not turn over since the ground from the stator to the ebox melted. On the beach we could have just turned the valves to off and then tow home and sort the problem. Instead, we towed home, the skis swamped during the tow, and now we have a bigger problem.

A swamped ski with no way of getting the ski fired back up and put back in the water.

We had to flip the ski to get the water out then fill the entire engine with oil to save the crank. Ski sat for a week with a bit of stress on everyone's mind waiting on jss to send our rebuilt stator back. Then the fun of putting everything together and not being able to see if the Cdi had been compromised from the melt down until we got all the oil out of the engine since if we hit the start button to check for spark, we could damage the engine.

Flipped the ski and shot 3/4 of a gallon of oil out of the engine and made a massive mess. Got the ski running then had to take the ski to the water and run it to ensure everything was fine.

Had we had valves to shut off the water flow.... None of that added stress and time and labor would have been necessary. Just shut the valves. Tow home at whatever speed. Then fix the electronics and start up the ski with no stress.

 

[Vortex]

Zack perhaps we should collab on a new product for ruthless unlimited!

This would be a valve selector on the dash so you wouldn't have to open the hood.

I went thru the process of trying to revive a swamped modified engine on the beach, totally sucks. Have to dilute the water with a bunch of fuel poured down thru the carbs and change the plugs over and over after cleaning them...just bad news all around.

All because of a bad cdi...luckily I had just bought a brand new battery which handled the abuse!

 

[McDog]

You could seriously just use a fuel selector. Easy. Cheap. Done.

 

[Vortex]

You could seriously just use a fuel selector. Easy. Cheap. Done.

Wouldn't that create a pressure increase due to smaller I.d.? Youd need 3/8 or 1/2

Principle of operation would be the same

 

[McDog]

We have a fcv on that circuit anyways. I'm sure it can be adjusted for if it's truly a significant pressure difference.

 

[speedysprocket]

You could seriously just use a fuel selector. Easy. Cheap. Done.

You're going to take two 3/8" or even 1/2" cooling lines and squeeze all that water through a 1/4" valve and still expect to cool the engine...?

 

[McDog]

Nope. Just the stinger on the pipe. That's the only water that flows into the engine.

 

[speedysprocket]

Top screw of the B-pipe is the prime culprit because it'll dribble water right into the manifold. The other screws, if open, can slowly fill the pipe, too. Stinger would be my last worry since it should have a FCV on it anyways, which is not going to open with the tiny bit of water pressure caused by towing...

 

[McDog]

I just can't see that tiny hole flowing enough water to swamp the ski. Maybe.

The thought line of the thread has been that the stinger line can get pressurized enough from towing to open the fcv.

If you want to get completely anal about it I guess you could put a valve on each cooling line as it exits the pump and reach up in there to turn them off if the need ever arose.

 

[Vumad]

Problem with a dash switch is when some joker rides your ski and shuts it off.

Seems like a better effort to fix weaknesses in the ski rather than adding new failure points.

But if you insist...

If you're running dual cooling from the pump, run a coupler halfway between the bulkhead and the manifold. Carry a multitool in a drypak that can be used for a lot of fixes. If you need to tow from the beach, unhook the lines and hook bulkhead to bulkhead and manifold to manifold. Just be sure to switch it back.

 

[Vortex]

It would have to have some kind of lock mechanism so the dash switch would be foolproof.

 

[tipafew]

Duct tape a set of vice grips under the hood. Problem solved

 

[DAG]

Pull off cooling lines from bulkhead and run bilge pump.
You do have a bilge pump in your surf ski right..