So nearly 9 months ago now Justin hosted a winter ‘Swim & Bonfire’ for the church at his place, in their dam. Unfortunately for my bank account I got to have my first go on a jetski….
Obviously I decided that I needed another mid-life crisis toy and so I started hunting for one.
I found this older, but very neat Yamaha in Hobart, with a freshly rebuilt engine and decided to bring it home. I negotiated the guy down to $4500.
I wanted an older model, specifically a 2 stroke powered model, for several reason, but mainly for the reduced maintenance requirements (no oil or coolant to maintain etc). This one fit the bill, and with a new motor I figured it would server me for a long time without any issues. Boy was I wrong.
I picked the ski up in September of last year, it was several months before I got the opportunity to take it out, Grant brought Wren around and we took it out to one of Marks dams, unfortunately for me when we put it in the water and went to start it, it would not turn over, the battery had gone flat while it was sitting and so I assumed it was a power issue, we mucked around with it for a while, during which the ‘smoke escaped’.
To cut a long story short, it turned out that between my purchase of the ski, and putting it in the water for the first time the impeller locked up. Yamaha used two different metals in the jet drive impeller housing, and on occasion the two metals can react and cause small bulges in the housing, which can cause the impeller to seize. This is what happened to mine, but because we kept trying to start it, we ended up burning the starter out motor and melting the starter relay solenoid.
So, before I even got to use it I’ve had to replace the starter motor, install a new battery, a new starter solenoid and rebuild the jet drive. I’m in the hole for nearly $2500 on top of the purchase price 😅
Yesterday I finally took it to Lake Barrington, put it in the water, and took it for a spin. Its loads of fun, and runs really well! Thank goodness! 😅
The lake yesterday was unreal, there was no wind and so the lake surface was like glass, the photos don’t really do it justice.
This next video kind of does the glass effect justice, watch it at a high resolution.
As a side note I also went and found the pumping station ingress point where Joe and I worked for a couple of weeks, I had our 30 ton digger here on the lakes edge:
Anyway, the ski is finally all good, and with the coin I have now spent on it I hope to keep it for a long time, and have many more adventures with it!