98 GTX LTD 951cc difficult to turn over

[SeadooRapidRider]

I bought a 98 GTX LTD on Ebay last year and it has been hard to start. It turns over for short moments with a new battery and fully charged. Some clicking and the sound of the starter engaing but not turning and then it will crank slowly for about 4 secsonds at a time but it sounds like the starter is working very strong when it engages. As the new battery
did not fix the problem I thought the starter was going so I went to the MAJOR hassle of removing it and it looks mint. No rust, no dirt even and the tines are perfect.

Both cylinders are at 120 psi. The machine has 167 hours on it. The pump turns fine and is not seized. When I could get the machine started it ran pretty good. It had a top speed of 53-55 mph at 1400 ft above sea level. The machine to me looks like it was driven in
salt water.

Do I need a rebuild ? Or is there anything else anyone can think of ? At this point I think my engine is starting to seize. I am not confident in it seizing because when it started the engine runs good. The battery is a YUMA reccommended by the dealer for my machine.

Another thing I should note is that the engine turns over awesome when the plugs are out. I had water in the engine twice last summer because my machine sunk. (real lemon they sold me) That is not the problem because it was had to turn over before that. Now that I haev my engine almost out I am thinking I should just replace it.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated

Thanks,

Wayne

[Bill O'Neal2]

Re: 98 GTX LTD 951cc difficult to turn over

That is how a pwc motor starts when it has poor grounds or badly corroded cables or a low battery or bad starter motor. Just because you installed the recommended battery (19 A/Hr ) does not mean the starter is seeing the full amount of power it needs to crank the engine under compression loads.

The frst thing I would do is load test the battery. If that is good, I would probably replace the battery leads ( salt water use ) and make sure that the engine cases are clean when I remounted the negative cable. The next thing is the starter relay, maybe the contacts are worn out inside of it? Try bypassing it by jumping one big lug to the other on the relay. Doing that, is the same as connecting the battery directly to the starter motor. The engine should turn over very good even with the sparkplugs in it. If not, then the starter motor is worn out and too weak to start the motor under a load (compression).

[SeadooRapidRider]

Re: 98 GTX LTD 951cc difficult to turn over

Thanks for the help Bill. Guess when you try to fix things yourself you can cause more work. I had my connectors perfectly clean with my new battery. I also tried a battery from my other machine and it is the same. The battery is not the issue. I will have a look at the starter relay. I presume that is in the black box ? Maybe corrosion is my problem. I pulled the motor for that !! :( The negative wire on the block was mint.

With the motor out now and 167 hours on it do you think I should change it with a rebuilt ? (again it is the 951) Also FYI my machine sunk 2 times last summer in fresh water and I had to drain the engine of water. It ran fine afterwards. My only problem has been turing over the motor. It's almost like it is suped up with high compression.

[SeadooRapidRider]

Re: 98 GTX LTD 951cc difficult to turn over

Opened the starter relay. Found the screw on the negative side to be badly coroded. The neg. cable looked really good. Could this be from a poor coroded screw ? I examined my started a little closer and took it apart to have a peak inside and found a couple black pieces coming out and some wear. Maybe it's a combination of the starter and the screw ?

Anyways I still have the motor out which I pretty much needed to do anyway to get the starter out. (not quite this far though :) )Do you reccomend a rebuilt now that I am this far ? I don't want to do this again 2 summers from now...

[Bill O'Neal2]

Re: 98 GTX LTD 951cc difficult to turn over

Opened the starter relay. Found the screw on the negative side to be badly coroded. The neg. cable looked really good. Could this be from a poor coroded screw ? I examined my started a little closer and took it apart to have a peak inside and found a couple black pieces coming out and some wear. Maybe it's a combination of the starter and the screw ?

Anyways I still have the motor out which I pretty much needed to do anyway to get the starter out. (not quite this far though :) )Do you reccomend a rebuilt now that I am this far ? I don't want to do this again 2 summers from now...

Yes by all means get a new starter motor. Things rust when water gets into the coil box and sits there.
I have some new oem starter motors for 951's that I salvaged from new motors. $175.00 each.