J5's plastic squirty thing.

[johnnyfive 11,402]

image-20170130_123129 by John Bell, on Flickr

So the old man spotted this plastic bath toy at his local WOF spot a few years ago. They (not a marine workshop, a backwater automotive garage) were unable to make it run. 
The old man pestered them every six months for a while till they sold it to him on behalf of the owner for a reasonable price (for a lump of plastic).
He then squirrelled it away in a barn until we built a shed at our place, we then squirrelled it away in my shed. I decided to take ownership of this project, and proceeded to do nothing with it, as is customary.

I am far from knowledgeable about boats (or anything), but can run google and the telephone pretty well. 

It appears to be a Tuff Jet, they were built by a Whakatane based business for a while (now based down south). I believe this one to be a pretty early iteration, likely late nineties, early 2000's. 
Roto-moulded polyethylene  2.8m 2 seater jetboat. (Yet to put a tape measure over it, but later models are stretched an extra 400mm or so).
Just over 300kg (I'd like to weigh it to confirm though), this one is fitted with a 2cylinder 787 Rotax as found in Seadoos of the late ninties. Quoted 110 Canadian HP. 
Some forum post on the internet says that the plastic hull has a UV warranty of 25 years, so hopefully the fact its been unused in sheds for the last 10 means I have more than 5 years of life in it.

I poked around a bit and learnt that Seadoo used a highly advanced (for its time) all in one CDI that included an immobilizer using a security coded lanyard. Cool.
My money was on that being quite shit, based on its resistance to do the sparks or allow the cranking. 
I was reluctant to bring it to a dealer to have its lanyard replaced / diagnosed until I knew the motor was better than it looks. Shorting the starter solenoid said it was quite fucked, and would not rotate, I freed it up, and a compression test confirmed, it was indeed as shit as it looked.

IMG_20180926_183501 by John Bell, on Flickr

SOMEBODIES BEEN IN HERE

IMG_20180926_183510 by John Bell, on Flickr

 

At this point it nothing happened for a few years while we brainstormed compact alternative powerplants that we were capable of making work.

This would be a perfect opportunity to fit something modern, more efficient, and in known good condition.

Naturally at this point I purchased the cheapest donor Jet-ski with the same engine I could find after trawling trademe and facebook marketplace relentlessly. I'll learn this lession twice.

IMG_20200701_143340 by John Bell, on Flickr

Amusingly the banana is supposed to make about 40hp more than a Jimny, and weigh about 1/3. 

IMG_20200701_165559 by John Bell, on Flickr

WOAH

IMG_20200701_165553 by John Bell, on Flickr

RADICAL

IMG_20200701_165544 by John Bell, on Flickr

I feel (more) like a scumbag instantly.

Popped it in the harbour one night after work, to try and assess it's health.

109576785_1549285395257880_4072391247589855252_n by John Bell, on Flickr

110336327_323032162200748_7293717375980309486_n by John Bell, on Flickr

As you'd expect it had a dead battery, jumpstarting a thing that is always in gear is a bit awkward. 

My only experience of Jet-skis being a JS300 childs Jet-ski I was very impressed and thought it to be very good initially.

Potato footage. It wasn't running 100% but appeared to go hard, until it stopped abruptly at wide open throttle in what suspiciously seemed like a heat seize, followed by a flat battery, followed by having to push it back about half a K across some oyster beds. NOICE. Speedo reckoned it was good for about 80km/h water speed though.

I got a battery and did a compression test on the Banana yesterday, got an even ~130psi across both pistons, which doesn't seem massive, but its even, and it still runs and nangs the limiter so I think I'm gonna send it.

So the Green Croc is covered in dust and reeks like 10 year old stale fuel, but now that @keltik and @Vintage Grumble have both purchased jetboats, its time I go and break down on a body of water with company, at some stage before summer I would like to swap powerplant, tidy up the plumbing and wiring, check carbs and fuel/oil system, and go get stranded somewhere. 

IMG_20201110_144127_1 by John Bell, on Flickr

IMG_20201110_144119 by John Bell, on Flickr

[HighLUX 33,852]

If all else fails

 

[johnnyfive 11,402]

5hp chonda you say

[johnnyfive 11,402]

Maybe that's what I do with the donor. Repower for dromeaggedon 2, on water

[HighLUX 33,852]

Nah put hull over a ct for poor mans burgman landski

[Truenotch 9,327]

9 hours ago, johnnyfive said:

dromeaggedon 2, on water

Velo boats have been a long time coming.... I reckon @sentra needs to get in on this tiny jet boat action. 

[Vintage Grumble 26,404]

24 minutes ago, Truenotch said:

Velo boats have been a long time coming.... I reckon @sentra needs to get in on this tiny jet boat action. 

I think Dave decided home made long tail boats were going to be the next big thing, so we aren't far off. 

[anglia4 1,948]

All these cute little boats popping up are making it very hard to resist looking on trademe/buy and sell...

MUST.RESIST.MORE.PROJECTS 

[johnnyfive 11,402]

@keltik insisted that I pull finger and offered to come give a hand to make some things happen.

Today we removed the dead motor from the green one and gave the engine bay a quick wipe down, pulled the fuel tank and rinsed out most of the orange sludge, pulled the oil tank and gave it a slight rinse. Everything is pretty dank. 

IMG_20201115_120527 by John Bell, on Flickr

IMG_20201115_125803 by John Bell, on Flickr

We then turned to the donor Banana and set about removing the working motor, and wiring etc.

IMG_20201115_140215_1 by John Bell, on Flickr

While the donor boat has the same motor, its more mid/front mounted when compared to the Green boat. I've since worked out that there was a hull change between '96 and '97 Seadoo XP models. The problem we found is that the boat required a splined coupling on the end of the crank for the rear mounted engine, and the front mounted donor ski had a different rubber flexi coupling thing for the longboi driveshaft. Spent a bit of time headscratching and bending bars unscrewing coupling from the crank, thankfully it got them swapped over. 

IMG_20201115_172626_1 by John Bell, on Flickr

IMG_20201115_140209_1 by John Bell, on Flickr

The donor motor has an aftermarket tune pipe and cute filters, sadly the aftermarket pipe won't easily fit under the seat, and have reverted back to the factory short boi. 

IMG_20201115_163048_1 by John Bell, on Flickr

Got it back into the spot. Going to try the jet unit that is in there for now, and see about swapping the other if something is rooted. Will need to sort out the water plumbing, fuel, oil, the wiring somewhat, and figure out how to shim the motor to get it aligned with the pump properly. 

Big boi no fit 

IMG_20201115_172512_1 by John Bell, on Flickr

Very pleased with the progress, I would have likely given up for the day when finding those couplings were different.

[keltik 2,690]

Keen to pop out next weekend also and tidy up the front of green boat and finish peeling the banana. Then it can go sit outside and think about what it's done

[Nominal 61,251]

Save the Banana!

 

[Vintage Grumble 26,404]

Actuallllllllly, Dave has a 3hp outboard and no boat, i'll try talk him into buying the banana, lelz. 

[keltik 2,690]

2 hours ago, Vintage Grumble said:

Actuallllllllly, Dave has a 3hp outboard and no boat, i'll try talk him into buying the banana, lelz. 

Wouldnt draw much water and Dave probably couldn't die on it

[Vintage Grumble 26,404]

34 minutes ago, keltik said:

Wouldnt draw much water and Dave probably couldn't die on it

You'd be amazed at the ways Dave has killed himself over the years.

Actually, one of those outboard jet unit doofers would make anything a jet boat.

[johnnyfive 11,402]

So yeah, thanks to Mr @keltik we got the new old motor in the hole and bolted down. 
Spent a little bit of time reattaching the lines for the oiler, fuel etc etc. 

Because using the entire electrics from the donor ski with a forward mounted motor and different hull, all the wiring was too short in some places and too long in others, spent a while lengthening some bits (and coiling other bits up in big loops).

No speedo in this hull as no spinny wheel speed sensor and I CBF mounting it, have ordered an AliExpress GPS one to bang in the dash. Have managed to get both the trim angle, fuel level gauge and oil low light to function. 

The fuel sender in both of them were not working, did some bodging, soldering wires to the board on the sender to bypass the problem hiding somewhere in some epoxy. 

I'm yet to confirm if the oil pump is primed and functioning, but as I'll show soon, I think its working in some capacity.

Will shorten and tidy up excessively long battery leads at some point also.
Boring picture is boring.
IMG_20201219_182000 by John Bell, on Flickr

 

[johnnyfive 11,402]

Had been referring to this as a green croc (distasteful shoe) up until now. But @Vintage Grumble and my wife made the comparison to a council green wheelie bin the other day. I believe its the same material, So currently thinking about garbage related potential names. 
Considering branding it with 'NO HOT ASHES', or 'GREEN WASTE' or similar. Lets hear your suggestions. I think its customary for boat names to be weak wordplay so keep that in mind.

This afternoon I tentatively buttoned up the wiring, threw the ute tray on the back, rinsed the dust off quickly, and met @Vintage Grumble and @keltik up at Bonniedoon to see how quickly it would sink or otherwise fail.

 

[johnnyfive 11,402]

Between filling the intake grate with lake weed, and intermittently running like a bag of dicks, it was a bit lame initially. 
It would start off strong but get to the point where you got 100% power or a stumbling surging 20%, but run progressively worse the longer you persevered. When it went well it'd skim along pretty well with two of us in it.
IMG_20201219_155248 by John Bell, on Flickr

IMG_20201219_155144 by John Bell, on Flickr

[johnnyfive 11,402]

I was probably about ready to pack it in for the afternoon and start looking for problems, when we realised the engine bay was full of smoke and it started pumping out the vents under the dash. It seems to have an exhaust leak, and I think is struggling to run on its own fumes. An engine mount as also failed so its flopping about a bit in there. 

I wouldn't say 100%, but runs a whoole lot more consistantly with the ute tray taken off. 
Filming is hard

Built in smoker

IMG_20201219_171149 by John Bell, on Flickr

IMG_20201219_171156 by John Bell, on Flickr

Also, kinda liking the look of it with the tray/hood off better.

IMG_20201219_181107_1 by John Bell, on Flickr
IMG_20201219_181149_1 by John Bell, on Flickr

IMG_20201219_162657 by John Bell, on Flickr

[Thphantum 8,333]

This side facing Kerb

[anglia4 1,948]

"Green Waste" is good on so many levels haha