Considering Options for 96 GTX

[thebilster23669]

Ok, so this is my first posting. I hope I have this in the right location. I am looking for the right SBT option to get me back in the water.

I am new to jet skis but learn fast so please forgive me if I more informaiton is needed for analysis. I have a 96 GTX that appears to have a blown engine. My son was running the ski full out and the engine simply stopped. It restarted but was rough and would only stay running for a few seconds. After hearing some pinging noises, I pulled the plugs and noticed that one of the spark plug gap was completely smashed shut. I pulled the head and found that the rear (towards back of ski) piston was damaged and that it had been slamming into the top of the piston head, thus, causing the spark plug gap to be smashed. Not a rocket scientist here but this obviously means that something else lower in the engine has also gone bad. So, does this sound like I need a complete new engine? If so, what options do I have from SBT? and last, how hard is it to replace and align it? And what else should be checked so that I can minimize the chance that this will happen again? Oil pump? Carb's? Any advice and recommendations are greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Bill

[Technical Support]

Re: Considering Options for 96 GTX

It wasn't the piston slaming into the head, it was mearly debris, most likely from the bottom end (crank, bearings, etc.) that was bouncing around doing the damage.

At this point, you need to pull the engine and completely tear it down for inspection. Most liklely you'll find bottom end damage along with your obvious top-end damage. On the off change your crank is ok (don't bet on it) you could get away with just a top-end job. Most likely though you need to completely rebuild it or replace it.

We have tech articles on doing the swap and aligning - also videos, check them all out. It's very easy to do that one, you're looking at abour a 5 hour project your first time.

As for what else to do, that again depends on what you find. The score patterns ont he pistons and the condition of the parts will determine hat to look at as far as the root cause. We have a tech article with piston damage picture you can compare against, check that out too. Feel free to post lots of pictures here when you get everything apart, we can give you a better idea of where to look from there.