Flipping couches for fun and profit

[WFO Speedracer]

While I had the cover off, the beeper was dead , most likely because of the giant dirt dobber nest inside of it , also the switch was toast , I had a set of handlebars out of a 4TEC laying around with the beeper still on it , all Seadoos use the same beeper assy. from 88 up to now , I cut the wires ran them through the sleeve and put two new weather Pak terminals on them , beeper fixed and the roadrunner would be so proud.

I also found another switch , the handlebar cover was toasted on the parts ski I stole this from so no disassembly other than removing the pins from the weather Pak connector , it didn't look that great so I shot it with some SEM purple voila color matched start stop switch , that's how we do , how we do fancy like !

Clock on another 30 minutes of labor and zero dollars spent for removal of the cover, painting repairing the beeper and switch and reassembly.

 

[WFO Speedracer]

All back together and looking purdy , I also put on new grips and hit the black handlebar parts with protectant to get them black again , I used spray paint to install the grips it works really well.

Labor was in the hog killing yesterday so zero on that , the grips came from Temu and are stockish looking , Seadoo grips are bolt on and $25.00 to $30.00 a set , yeah we aren't doing that here , I paid $30.00 for six sets of grips and endcaps off of TEMU , so add $5.00 for a set of grips .

I will be popping that purple gauge cap off today and respraying it purple , as you do more cosmetic stuff to the ski you always find more that needs to be done , notice that now the fore seat looks horrible as compared to before , new parts and new paint always make old parts look older and then the whole thing just looks off.

I am kinda digging the color coded start button ., but I am weird so...............................

 

[WFO Speedracer]

The large Seadoo graphics are here and I said earlier they have to be respaced to fit, that means cutting out each individual letter and placing it on the ski in the right spot , even at that it wasn't going to cover the magenta correctly, what to do , what to do ?

Then I pulled one out of the old filing cabinet , I remembered that Berry B12 runs dye on decals like they are watercolors and it just so happens I have some here, so working carefully I removed all of the Magenta Seadoo logo and put the new graphics on in their place, the graphics price was figured in weeks ago , so zero dollars spent , add another 15 minutes to remove and apply the graphic while you are at it go ahead and add 30 minutes because I still have another side to do.

I think if you look really closely , squint and turn you head slightly to the right you might be able to see the difference.

I like the purple a lot more than the Magenta , I do believe the small graphics I ordered that go above these on the hull are the correct Magenta color though.

I believe the price on that Graphis kit was $42.44 shipped , you can't buy a single grapic for this ski for that price if you could even find one still.

 

[WFO Speedracer]

Rear bumper corner had turned completely white , on some of this Seadoo plastics you can heat gun or hit it with a torch and it will come back to it's original color , not this piece , I tried and failed, so I just taped it up and shot it with vinyl dye , it's not a perfect match but even if you had a brand new bumper corner it still wouldn't be , it's good enough.

Time spent 5 minutes , money spent zero dollars , I am just inching along on this one in between working on other stuff and before and after work.

 

[WFO Speedracer]

Today I am doing some trailer repair even though this ski won't leave on this trailer , this is a lot trailer at the moment that someone gave me after they ran over it with a tractor and bent the tongue.

I tried beating the tongue out of the trailer from the back and it was having none of it , so I cut the tongue off at the bolt hole with a hacksaw, dented it in on the flat parts , lubed the tongue up and hammered it out from the front.

I had a tongue left over from one I swapped out about a year ago, doesn't matter right now , it's a lot trailer and a short tongue is better than a bent one.

Later down the road I will be rehabbing the whole trailer, I have another trailer like this that is galvanized , it was in an accident , and got a little bent up , a welder repaired it and later gave it to me , out of the two I can make one nice trailer and still have a decent lot trailer , instead of having two crappy lot trailers.

 

[WFO Speedracer]

Today was water test day or bonehead day, not sure which , I got the ski loaded on a decent trailer and made the trek to Gantt lake , I went to check the drain plug before I put the ski in and there wasn't one , mostly because it was missing when I got the ski and I never put one in it, I have a lot of stuff with me, drain plugs are not among the things I have though.

I was in the tracker so supplies were limited, I did find a roll of nylon webbing that I use on Seadoo covers , no idea why it was in there but it was , a cut a piece, rolled it up as tightly as I could , made a nylon tampon, shoved it in the drain hole and hoped for the best , it only needs a drain plug when it's sitting still anyway right ?

The motor ran flawlessly however the wear ring I installed has too much clearance , the main reason I stopped using these but hey I am a glutton for punishment so .............

At any rate one it got over the initial cavitation out of the hole it ran really well, excellent in fact , I brought it back to the ramp to figure out why the pisser wasn't pissing , when I dropped the ski in I fired it up and undid the exit hose out of the head to make sure it was pumping water, then I checked the line to the exhaust cone , all good there , then the pisser , I usually carry a roll of weed eater line but not today so I fished a piece of wire through it, nothing .

I undid the line going to the pisser, nothing, I blew through the line and it blew something out , tried it again , .nothing , so after several round of this it finally worked whatever was in the line out and it started pissing , I put the pin through the bow and pulled the trailer out, I say trailer because when I got to the top of the ramp there was no ski on the trailer , look down the ramp and the ski is just sitting there saying hey, did you forget something , so those were the two bonehead move of the day.

Time to order another wear ring.

 

[Myself]

I keep one of the cheapo blue ones like that in stock for the old aluminum pumps. They seem to be just right for those.

 

[WFO Speedracer]

Yeah the last couple of those I got were a really loose fit, this is one of those , have started using the ones from Ritco, they seem to have a lot better tolerances , Matter of fact I have one already in a Plastic pump, I am probably just going to swap this impeller into that pump housing and rock and roll . not that much difference in the price either , I have been pretty impressed with the Ritco stuff I have gotten thus far.

SeaDoo 587 717 720 787 800 GS GT GTI GTS GTX HX SP SPI SPX XP 140MM Wear Ring | eBay

New RItco Products Wear Ring. Manufactured out of high strength Delrin Plastic.

www.ebay.com

 

[WFO Speedracer]

I took the VX1100 off of the flip stand , loaded it onto a trailer and moved it to the other shop where the big compressor is , then I came back and loaded up the flip stand, I should get it all put back together this week and start laying some primer on the top , I am not sure how much work the bottom needs yet but there is some work that has to be done , I am going Lime green top and Black bottom and probably black hood and top cowling then I will have the graphics made to match it all up , those guys in Poland will make any color graphics I want , they are damned cheap and look really good.

 

[WFO Speedracer]

Today I am doing paint touch up , I tried the purple I painted the last ski with and it was a bit off, I found some red and mixed with it and got it fairly close and used an artists brush to fill it in , the key here is to mix activator with it fairy heavily, you want it to thicken and harden fairly quiclky so it doesn't run all over the place , so mix it up, let it thicken a bit then go after it with the brush.

Keep in mind the goal here is not to get it perfect just less noticeable which it is already , you want to put a lot of paint on, enough to completely fill the scratch and stick up some off of the surface , I compare this to a gelcoat repair , build it up high then cut it back down level with the surface and then buff the whole thing out.

Time spent about 30 minutes , money spent zero dollars , but this is one of those things that makes a really noticeable improvement and will add value to the ski.

I will probably give it a the rest of the day and overnight to cure and finish it up tomorrow morning.

 

[WFO Speedracer]

Returfed the ski, I am not putting on any more turf than what it came from the factory with , that means no going up and down the footwells , the stock nonskid works and looks just fine , this turf is not optimal but it is what I had here and it is done !

I say blue can go with purple since they are in the same color family , at any rate it is here ,I didn't even try to match the patterns up on the two side pieces , I figured that would work itself out.

Time spent about 30 minutes money spent maybe $10.00 ,not sure how you would divide that up on a $35.00 roll of turf.

 

[WFO Speedracer]

I have a few spots to fix on the gelcoat, these appear to be air pockets in the fiberglass and the gelcoat covering them has broken , usually I have white gelcoat and cabosil here but at the moment I am out so to quickly and more important cheaply fix this issue I ordered a gelcoat paste repair kit from Amazon , add another $17.00 , it will be here Sunday and hopefully the decals will as well.

While I am waiting on that I am pulling this pump and removing the impeller, I have another pump here with a new wear ring installed ready to go so and I have already repaired this impeller so I am just going to swap pumps and call it a day , I am also headed out to recover the fore- seat and as you will soon see that alone will make one of the biggest differences in the look of this ski .

 

[WFO Speedracer]

These three spots just got a lot bigger but there is a really good reason for that , notice the jagged edges of the spots in the last post , that won't work when you are doing a gelcoat pull and trying to blend in the repair , you can take a die grinder and a carbide cutting bit and smooth the edges, a Dremel with a sanding roll will also work.

If you don't have either of those you can do what I did here, tightly roll up a piece of 120 grit DA paper and smooth it using that, you just need to get the edges smooth and clean , don't worry how big the area gets , it will be as large as it needs to be

.Notice how smooth and clean the edges are now, that is what you want , one of the main reasons for this is taping it up , I will be applying a lot of masking tape here and there is no way to tape up a jagged edge like that , also the larger the area the better it will bond , just like feathering out an epoxy repair on fiberglass or SMC.

The idea here is to build up about four of five layers of masking tape , this lets the repair sit slightly above the surface and also allows for shrinkage as the gelcoat paste shrinks some as it dries , we will get back to this later when the gelcoat paste gets here.

Add another 5 minutes of work and zero dollars spent.

 

[WFO Speedracer]

Seat recovering :

I am going to throw out a few tips, take em or leave em. whether you buy seat covers or recover them yourself you will have to remove staples and it sucks , well usually it does , instead of un-stapling the cover and then removing it take a razor knife and run it all around the edge about 1/4-1/2 " above the staples, then remove the cover and foam, what you are left with is a small strip with the staples in it, if you will work a couple of staples loose and grab that strip and pull it most of the staples will come out still in the strip , a lot less time consuming and a lot less messy.

Tip number two :
On these older Seadoos the fore -seat bases get tweaked from the vinyl shrinking and that pulls the edges of the seat base outward and looks terrible , before in this thread I mentioned some Seadoo plastics you can hit with a torch or a heat gun, the seat base is that type of plastic , I usually use a propane torch because well FIRE !

Heat up the seat base in those areas where it is bent out away from the hull , you don't need it super hot you should be able to still hold it with your hands unless you work in an office and have sissy hands , if so get some gloves or you might hurt yourself here.

I usually bend it around a two by four or a piece of pipe and hold it till it cools , then take the base and put it back on the hull to see how it fits , it if needs it bend it some more , it should now fit like the one in the photos.

These covers are glued to the foam which sucks, if the vinyl is in pretty good shape like this one is just leave it and cover over it , most Blacktip covers are actually made to install over the stock covers , it won't hurt a thing , if the seat is horrible do whatever you have to do , Gorilla duct tape works wonders here .

In my case it kinda sucks because I usually cut up the stock cover to make a pattern, I will just have to tough it out or see if I still have an older one laying around I can make a pattern off of .

These fore-seats are a little bit different than anything else you will ever recover, why, because you will not get all the wrinkles out by pulling it and stretching it , some will be left but if you did the job right when to reattach it to the hull you will push the bottom inward and the rest of the wrinkles will come out, I am telling you this because if it's pulled so tight that there are no wrinkles, you won't be able to get it back on the hull.


Time spent so far 20 minutes , money spent zero dollars.

 

[WFO Speedracer]

enoughSeat is done , it's just sitting on the ski , I need the clips to put it back on with , O 'reilly has them if you want to pay $5.00 for two , no thanks because I need six , I will find them on Amazon or Ebay.

Go ahead and add another hour labor here, but zero dollars spent , I already had the purple vinyl , it actually took a lot longer because I had to pull another seat that had a Blacktip cover on it and pull it apart for the pattern, I am not counting the additional time because now I have the pattern and I have several more seats that use that pattern coming up very soon.

As you can see when you fix one thing something else stands out , right now it's those two Bombardier decals in the back , the two GTS decals up front and the fuel cap , I will fix all that soon enough not sure about the GTS decals yet I will have to see what my girls at the sign shop can do with that. .

 

[Batteryman]

Its starting to look good! Thanks for the tip about gel coat repair. staying tuned

 

[WFO Speedracer]

Its starting to look good! Thanks for the tip about gel coat repair. staying tuned

It comes in Sunday I will get back on the gelcoat then.

 

[WFO Speedracer]

I pulled the pump back out and swapped the impeller into the other pump , it still had too much clearance for my tastes , this is the second plastic pump I have had this issue with , I am now pretty much convinced that with a plastic pump you are only going to run a OEM wear ring , every aftermarket wear ring I have tried has had excessive clearance issues except on the RFI pumps, those seem to work out ok other than those I hate these plastic pumps with a passion.

I removed the new wear ring from the plastic pump , I found a bronze -plastic pump and installed the wear ring into it , it went in fairly tight and I pressed it in with the hydraulic press then installed the impeller into the pump , now I have a workable impeller to wear ring clearance, it could be tighter but I think it will work .

Time spent about an hour , $12.00 spent on a tube of silicone which is ridiculous , I am used to the high prices on the Right Stuff but damn , when did silicone get so damn expensive ?

 

[Myself]

The WSM wear rings fit the plastic pumps perfectly. Usually a bit snug on the brass pumps to the point you have to leave the four 17mm nuts loose and splash water into the pump then fire it off and splash some more water so the impeller "shaves" it's own clearance. I used to use a lot of wear rings from Western PowerSports and they always seemed to fit nice as well.

 

[WFO Speedracer]

Yep I have had to do the shave trick many time , I usually sprayed soapy water into the pump with a spray bottle, it's usually only on plastic cased pumps though.

I haven't used the WSM wear rings lately or the WPS ones either for that matter, I need to get some more and check them out , I don't remember when the last time was that I put a 140 wear ring for a customer, it's been a minute.