Established 2008
Locally Owned and Operated
Established 2008
Locally Owned and Operated
Where you don't have to walk the plank to get great service at a fair price
Sorry, The cost for impeller repairs has gone up significantly
SBT has raised the price of impeller refinishing ( to what I consider a fair price, I felt it was under priced since the 2009 and shipping rates and insurance have also increased.) You'll find the cost is about double what you may have paid in previous seasons. A good reason to be aware of your location on the lake and to emphasize to your friends the importance of stopping the engine while you are a few yards from shore.
The cost to you to have your impeller refinished to like new condition is still far below the cost of any replacement impeller.
All impeller repairs include a pump bearing check (Seadoo pump oil an additional $7.50 charge) a pump seal pressure check and a wear ring replacement.
Jet Pump Service for Seadoo Two Stroke Skis
Captain Pete has the tools and expertise to maintain your Jet Pump and driveline in top condition
What about My Kawasaki/Yamaha/Polaris - don't they need oil changes too?
Most of the other brands of skis and late model Seadoo 4 stroke skis use ball bearings in the drivelines which require minor additional service until they begin to fail, which is why you must be aware of any changes in sound or ski performance. Part of yearly maintenance is checking these pumps for water intrusion. These bearings are packed with marine grease, so if water has leaked into the pump housing, the bearing will likely need replacement. If you tow water skis or tubes often, it's a good idea to repack the non sealed bearing type(Seadoo) every 100 hours of operations on these skis.
Check inside the hull of your jet ski..if you see a grease fitting on the driveshaft, give it a shot or two with a grease gun every few rides (do your trailer wheel bearing while you have the grease gun out) Yamaha skis only require ONE shot of grease in the driveline fitting per season ( this fitting is typically at the rear of the engine block connected by a rubber hose to the driveline. Do NOT over grease a Yamaha driveline fitting, the hose will blow out and you'll have a mess and an expensive repair bill.
Jet Pump Dentistry
Your jet pump is designed to generate tremendous thrust thru the use of closely fitting pump components.
Your pump moves a tremendous amount of water through a fairly narrow opening.
In order to do this the space
between the edge of your propeller and the inner circle of the ring the
surrounds the propeller ( technically it's called an impeller, but for the
moment a propeller is more familiar image..but for now we'll just refer to it as
the "prop") has the be very close. Nearly half the thickness of a
credit card
There is a ring of material that surrounds the prop. This is called the
"wear ring"
The purpose of the wear ring is to protect the prop from major damage when
rocks and other debris is encountered
Instead of badly damaging the prop, the wear ring takes the beating..it's much
softer then the metal prop, so when you
pick up a chunk of gravel and it enters the jet pump the prop ( under the best
of circumstances) has one of several things happen to it:
1-Rock is pulverized when the prop blade strikes it and the debris passes harmlessly
thru the jet pump. The edge of the blade gets a good dent in it, but you barely
notice.
2-Rock is thrown against the edge of the wearing by the prop movement and jams between
the edge of the wear ring and the prop, yes, this is bad. Real Bad. The rock is
now on a wild 5000 rpm ride, and since most rock is harder then plastic, the
plastic jet pump wear ring is now being gouged ..until the rock breaks up, the
wear ring is gouged down to the jet pump housing ( at which point the rock
either passes thru or damages the pump so badly you cannot move any further
The Jet pump will need some service after a catastrophic rock ingestion event. Maybe lots of service. This depends on what size rocks you picked up, how many of them there was and how fast the engine was running when it happened. The WORST thing you can do is ride your ski up on the beach with the engine running. That just totally mangles up the pump innards, often costing hundred of dollars in repairs. Major enough damage requiring a pump replacement can into over $500 dollars. A new prop can cost close to $300
Sand is not nearly as bad to the prop, but wait..sand can be worse for the engine!
It's very easy to avoid any problems with your jet pump, outside of the normally required services.
Keep the ski in water at least 4-5 feet deep and you seriously increase the lifespan of your pump and the size of your wallet. Accidents happen, people hit sandbars and friends run your ski on the beach. So even the well informed sometimes fall victim to a pump ingestion. Sometimes it's a roll of trash bags, or a lost tow rope that ends up in your pump. In most cases it's best to have the ski inspected, as any debris ingestion can block the cooling water inlet ( even the Seadoos, touted to have sealed cooling systems ( complete with antifreeze) still use lake water to cool the exhaust system!
Bad things happen very quickly if your Big Seadoo overheats from debris blocking the cooling water flow. Alarms start going off. If you don't respond quickly, the problem can escalate to the exhaust hose melting ( it's made out of special rubber that can take plenty of heat, but without cooling it melts).
In one case an engine overheated due to a dozen plastic trash bags being sucked into the pump, the exhaust overheat alarm went off. The rider didn't know what was making that noise and kept running the ski. The exhaust system started to melt, the ski went into reduced power mode, to try to save the engine from severe damage any engine alarm such as low oil pressure, high engine coolant temp or high engine exhaust temp will sound for 30 seconds and then will trigger the boat computer to limit max rpm to 3500. Enough we hope for you to motor back to your dock.
In so many ways the jet pump is the heart of your ski...neglect it, feed it trash and rocks and it will fail quickly..and typically at the worst possible moment
Stainless isn't actually painless
A number of customer inquired about stainless steel pump upgrades last season. In most instances we do not suggest upgrading to a stainless steel wear ring in Seadoo jet pumps due to the chance of gravel ingestion.
While a stainless steel wear ring will make short work of most debris such as tow ropes and trash bags, it can keep gravel bouncing around in your pump long enough to destroy the pump housing.
if you loan your ski to others, or like to put it on the beach, stick with the stock plastic wear ring.
We offer upgrades to Yamaha jet pumps which replace the stainless wear ring sleeve with a replaceable plastic insert.
Plastic wear rings cost $60, replacement pump housings for Seadoo cost $400+, for Yamaha $250+
While stainless steel wear rings are great for the open ocean and performance, there is a significant trade off when using them in Elephant Butte lake.
A stainless wear ring works great, unless you get some gravel in the pump..and oods are you'll ingest far more gravel this season them trash bags and old tow ropes.
Lake levels are expected to be lower for the 2011 riding season. Know where you are, stick to the marked channels when running at speed. Learn to recognize submerged sand bars. Pay CLOSE attention to hazard markers, even if they seem "out of place"
Kawasaki Owners take Note:
Jet pumps in Kawasaki brand skis use sealed bearings, these bearing fail quickly if water intrudes into the jet pump, with horrific results. There is no way to grease the bearings in Kawasaki products. If a pump seal fails, water gets into the pump housing, then into the bearings.
A bearing failure can result in the jet pump seizing and a less then honest shop might take that as an opportunity to sell you a "rebuilt engine"
A seized jet pump makes the engine appear to have failed. You hit the starter button and the engine goes 'clunk"
Pumps on some models of Kawasaki Skis can fail with as little as 75 hours on them!
Part of your maintenance routine should be a pump bearing check
This is a good opportunity to grease the connection between the driveshaft and
your impeller, check the prop for rock damage and test the condition of the pump
bearings
You should be checking this at the end of every season, so you can set out at the beginning of the next season fully confident that your ski is running well.
Pump bearing checks start @$75, if repairs are needed this is put against the total bill. We'll pull your pump, grease the driveshaft splines where they enter the prop, inspect the seals and prop and evaluate the current bearing condition.
Checking every two seasons is the maximum amount of time I'd wait, if you wait longer then that your repair bill could be much higher. When bearings fail they can damage the impeller shaft , the impeller itself and the pump housing ( there is no replaceable wear ring in Kawasaki pumps), if you damage the stainless steel ring the pump housing has to be replaced and that runs into hundreds of additional dollars in repair costs.
Copyright © 2010-2019 RCP Enterprises LLC
All rights reserved. Reproduction in any form of text or other elements
of
this web site without express written permission is prohibited.
Last modified:
October 27, 2015
We use Google Analytics to determine your location. No other
personal information is gathered
All product and company names are
trademarks™ or registered® trademarks of their respective holders.
Use of them by Captain Pete's Jetski Service/RCP Enterprises LLC does not imply
any affiliation with or endorsement by them.