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Hi to all the folks here!
It's been GREAT reading all the posts that helped me re-build a cool lil boat.
I live in Southwest Florida, just off the Imperial River that leads out to the Gulf, I always wanted a boat to plunk in the water here. All my neighbors have outboards to get through the shallows here, but I didn't want any of that boring fishing boat stuff......... I wanted a Jetboat.
To see if I liked the Jetboat head, I bought a 95 Sportster which looked like she was in pretty good condition. The day after buying it we took her for a test and almost submerged her cause a badly worn scupper valve........ but until then we were having a hoot to say the least, but I knew I needed to do alot of work, though these jets seemed to be a ton of fun.
I brought her into the garage and started the work..... I get a little carried away and I'll call this a restoration. I ordered the owners manual and a shop manual from my local dealer, and also got a shop manual CD off ebay. The engine seemed to have injested water somewhere, and though the compression was good there it seemed to have a bad rod. I ordered a 717 rebuild from SBT and when I got it and saw how awesome a newly painted engine looked, I found the color codes and ran to my local PPG dealer to get the bulletproof paint matched. I sandblasted all the engine and exhaust parts, then painted them OEM silver and purple. It came out awesome. Then I cleaned the bilge and order a ton of NEW parts to make this lil baby reliable in the water. Besides flame arrestors the only other mod on this boat is a Vibratech Fluid Balancer cause I heard that vibration is a 717 killer.
For under 20 buckos I made an engine hoist that could slide along the ceiling of my garage to put the engine back in without chipping the paint. After putting on new oem oil lines, bleeding the pump, and reconnecting all the necessary lines it was time to push her outside and fire her up.
I tried for about 10 minutes to get her a running and she wouldn't fire at all. Tried this and that to no avail. Then I realized the fuel was turned off. hehehe. I turned on the fuel valve and she started on the first attempt and she sounded GREAT.
I then rebuilt the carrier seal, installed a new wear ring and aligned the engine/pump.
The interior was also gone over as well , though there were NO tears in the vinyl it was pretty faded. I worked on the vinyl for days and it came out looking NOT JUST GOOD, but like IT JUST CAME OFF THE SHOWROOM FLOOR. I was psyched to see such an amazing improvement.
After seeing the dash on the Speedsters and the Challengers, I knew I had to ditch that dang no-mirror/one guage way up front dash the Sportster had. I found a green xp dash on ebay complete with guages and I won the auction. I then ran to the PPG dealer to get the teal paint matched and disassembled the dash and painted it. Now I have a Dreamometer/Tach/Gas guage right in front of me like it big brothers.
Well, enough said, she's hit the water for bout a month now and I take her out almost every other day. 45 dreamometer and 41 gps, and the gas mileage is great. I just walk out back and jump in her and cruise down the river out to the gulf. When I'm lucky I'll be idling along and dolphins will be swimming right along side. This is truly amazing, they are such amazing creatures.
All in all I LOVE the head that a jetboat gives, these are the coolest rides out there!!!
Yesterday, I just had a JetDock installed and I'll give some feedback as how these work. Initially they seem to be awesome and alot of fun.
I'll also post some pics when I have time to get em off the camera.
Thanks again for all the great informative posts that got me along as I was peeping.
I have to thank Kathy, both Jennifers, Stephanie, and tech support at SBT...... they were totally amazing in both their service and support.
I wouldn't have been able to do this without the GREAT posts here from "Bill", "Byron", and others to many to mention.
SmokeyJoe
(friends don't let friends drive props)
It's been GREAT reading all the posts that helped me re-build a cool lil boat.
I live in Southwest Florida, just off the Imperial River that leads out to the Gulf, I always wanted a boat to plunk in the water here. All my neighbors have outboards to get through the shallows here, but I didn't want any of that boring fishing boat stuff......... I wanted a Jetboat.
To see if I liked the Jetboat head, I bought a 95 Sportster which looked like she was in pretty good condition. The day after buying it we took her for a test and almost submerged her cause a badly worn scupper valve........ but until then we were having a hoot to say the least, but I knew I needed to do alot of work, though these jets seemed to be a ton of fun.
I brought her into the garage and started the work..... I get a little carried away and I'll call this a restoration. I ordered the owners manual and a shop manual from my local dealer, and also got a shop manual CD off ebay. The engine seemed to have injested water somewhere, and though the compression was good there it seemed to have a bad rod. I ordered a 717 rebuild from SBT and when I got it and saw how awesome a newly painted engine looked, I found the color codes and ran to my local PPG dealer to get the bulletproof paint matched. I sandblasted all the engine and exhaust parts, then painted them OEM silver and purple. It came out awesome. Then I cleaned the bilge and order a ton of NEW parts to make this lil baby reliable in the water. Besides flame arrestors the only other mod on this boat is a Vibratech Fluid Balancer cause I heard that vibration is a 717 killer.
For under 20 buckos I made an engine hoist that could slide along the ceiling of my garage to put the engine back in without chipping the paint. After putting on new oem oil lines, bleeding the pump, and reconnecting all the necessary lines it was time to push her outside and fire her up.
I tried for about 10 minutes to get her a running and she wouldn't fire at all. Tried this and that to no avail. Then I realized the fuel was turned off. hehehe. I turned on the fuel valve and she started on the first attempt and she sounded GREAT.
I then rebuilt the carrier seal, installed a new wear ring and aligned the engine/pump.
The interior was also gone over as well , though there were NO tears in the vinyl it was pretty faded. I worked on the vinyl for days and it came out looking NOT JUST GOOD, but like IT JUST CAME OFF THE SHOWROOM FLOOR. I was psyched to see such an amazing improvement.
After seeing the dash on the Speedsters and the Challengers, I knew I had to ditch that dang no-mirror/one guage way up front dash the Sportster had. I found a green xp dash on ebay complete with guages and I won the auction. I then ran to the PPG dealer to get the teal paint matched and disassembled the dash and painted it. Now I have a Dreamometer/Tach/Gas guage right in front of me like it big brothers.
Well, enough said, she's hit the water for bout a month now and I take her out almost every other day. 45 dreamometer and 41 gps, and the gas mileage is great. I just walk out back and jump in her and cruise down the river out to the gulf. When I'm lucky I'll be idling along and dolphins will be swimming right along side. This is truly amazing, they are such amazing creatures.
All in all I LOVE the head that a jetboat gives, these are the coolest rides out there!!!
Yesterday, I just had a JetDock installed and I'll give some feedback as how these work. Initially they seem to be awesome and alot of fun.
I'll also post some pics when I have time to get em off the camera.
Thanks again for all the great informative posts that got me along as I was peeping.
I have to thank Kathy, both Jennifers, Stephanie, and tech support at SBT...... they were totally amazing in both their service and support.
I wouldn't have been able to do this without the GREAT posts here from "Bill", "Byron", and others to many to mention.
SmokeyJoe
(friends don't let friends drive props)
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