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My friend pulled an older jet ski out of storage and is trying to get it running. It supposedly ran fine last time out, years ago, and has gas stabilizer in the tank, but he couldn't get it to fire up, so I went over to look at it.
The battery was dead, so he had the power coming from a truck battery with jumper cables. The starter will turn over fast and strong, but there was absolutely no combustion.
We replaced the old plugs (black, wet), with new plugs, checked the plug wires, which seem good, and tried some starter fluid down the carbs. Still no combustion, and when we pulled the plugs, no spark. Just to be sure, I pulled the fuel pump out and submerged it in fresh gas, but no combustion.
I'm pretty sure its electrical at this point, but I'm no jet ski expert. Can anyone think of things to target to get this jet ski working?
Are you able to confirm that it's getting power to the coil(s) ? Does it have a choke?
First thing is you need to figure out why no spark. Usually the ignitions on small engines are pretty simple, if this thing is less than 20 years old it almost certainly has a solid-state ignition, these don't go bad too often.
If you can manage to drain the gas that's in the carbs right now, I have found that frequently this helps on bikes.
If this is a 2-stroke, make sure you have oil in the oil injection tank and/or are using pre-mix.
Has this been sitting on the water or in a shed? Or outside?
Been sitting in a garage, so its at least been sheltered. Typically, even with a weak spark and starter fluid, I can get some combustion, but I'm getting absolutely nothing from this engine.
With *no* spark, or a very weak spark, it won't run. If the plugs are getting wet with fuel/oil mix, the carbs are working.
What does the gas smell like? If it has a strong varnish smell, drain that out (you can mix it with fresh fuel and still use it in a car, lawnmower, etc.) and replace with fresh mix.
Again, if this is a 2-stroke, make certain you understand how it oils, and mix the proper oil with the gas if that's how it works.
I'm betting it's bad gas from sitting over time, along with varnished gas that was left in the carb. Drain the gas, replace with new premix, pull the carb apart and clean everything and I'm sure it will run.
Pulled the engine apart, cleaned everything up, and now have great spark. The old fuel is still in the tank, and I'm thinking the carbs may need to be tuned to run with the new plugs. Need to put in fresh gas and then start calibrating the carbs.
Not certain what you mean by calibrating the carbs - if they were set up right before, if you get them clean, they should be good now.
You do need to syncronize multiple carbs, but even pretty badly out of synch, it should start and run.
IIRC you need to have water available to the engine one way or another, the jet ski uses the water it floats in to cool, right?
I have been fooling with 2-stroke engines since 1973, but have never owned a jet ski (can't say why not, I guess I just never saw a really great deal on one that I couldn't turn down...)
If you can get rid of most of the old fuel, particularly if it smells like varnish, this will help you get it going.
Yes, for sustained running, you'd need the jetski in the water, but I'm still at trying to get it to turn over. The gas is good, the lines, intake and carbs are clean, but with new plugs, they may be set too rich. I've had motorcycles with carbs and bad plugs, and after replacing them, the carbs needed to be leaned back out to get the engine to run, so I figure that may be the same case with a jet ski. Plus, the stator may be bad, so that will be swapped too.
If a motor is running fine, and carbs are tuned there should be no changes needed when changing spark plugs. The only time carbs need to be tweaked is if you are changing the elevation in where you operate the machine. Say going from sea level to 3000' or there are major outside air temp changes.
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