J5's plastic squirty thing.

[johnnyfive]

picture work? Tricky

[Vintage Grumble]

Is there still a way to get to the river by the rail bridge? Might have to investigate.

[johnnyfive]

Shrug, walking or boat launching access?

[nzstato]

Handy resource if you dont have it.  Includes all of the speed unrestricted (uplifted) rivers, conditions and launching sites.  Halfway down pg4 is the Whakatane. 

https://issuu.com/nzjetboating/docs/jbnz_ybook_14

Local councils also publish marine bylaws.

https://cdn.boprc.govt.nz/media/651889/navigation-safety-bylaw-book-2017-web-final.pdf

 

[johnnyfive]

That's exactly the kind of info I've been meaning to look for! Cheers, will have to study it

[HighLUX]

Try tutu’n with the trim when you do a nang launch from standing. Trimmed right down should make it leap out of the water onto a plane then trim up in increments to bring nose down and keep it riding nicely 

[Vintage Grumble]

Boat launching, so you can miss out the boring stuff at the beginning, and get balls deep into the goooooooooood stuff. I was yarning to a dude yesterday, and the jet boat Barry's say the upper Whakatane is a perfect place to learn skinny water driving, as there's lots of runoff, and no big rocks. Barry's reckon if you can do the upper WHK, the Motu is easy(ish)  

[keltik]

Action shot.  There's a boat in there....honest.

 

[johnnyfive]

So yeah, went motor boating this morning with @keltik and @Vintage Grumble. Started off from Matahina dam, completed a return trip to Aniwhenua hydro outlet. 

Out and about for around 4hrs, only moving for around 2:45 of that. Covered around 56km, this may not be completely accurate. Used about 38L fuel. My maths may not be correct, but I believe this to be nearly 68L/100km (LOL). Plus a bit of twostroke oil I guess.

Matahina, Aniwhenua return by John Bell, on Flickr

Really pleased with how it went, banged into a couple bits of wood and maybe a few rocks, had a rapid or two over the windscreen, and didn't sink. Didn't conk out, although I still don't find the motor gives a lot of confidence, though that could be twostroke trauma from another life.

As far as operating though I was quite surprised at how forgiving it seemed, I have no idea what I was doing and kept getting away with it, I found some of the angry water quite intimidating but seemed to get through ok, although I don't want to try anything much more aggressive than that.

Only causualty for the day for me was it seems my fuel filler neck has popped off in the rough stuff, the neck is hard and not very flexible anymore so might look towards replacing that. I took basically zero pictures or video, so hopefully the others caught a bit more of something. Here is a picture of a poopy fuel filler neck.

2021-01-17_08-23-27 by John Bell, on Flickr

[johnnyfive]

Have pottered about with this thing a little bit. Things looked at in no specific order.

Put a pair of latches on the front of the lid, hopefully wont fly away in the bumpy stuff, I should probably put a latch or hinge on the rear. With the lid on the engine bay is virtually sealed off aside from a couple vents under the dash and a drain(into the engine bay) in the footwell. I think this thing is pretty buoyant, but I have a fear that if the lid weren't on a decent wave into the engine bay would swamp it perhaps. 

IMG_20210123_184257_1 by John Bell, on Flickr

Put some strappy guide things on the sides of it, as the back of the hull tapers in and down ever so slightly, and I kept having tiedowns slide off the back if I tied it onto the trailer using intended hooks.

IMG_20210123_185737 by John Bell, on Flickr

Found an engine mount on the other side was about ready to separate, had another spare left over from the donor jetski. In theory I should be aligning the motor to the jet unit/hull using an alignment tool, but its expensive, so yeah.

IMG_20210123_143454 by John Bell, on Flickr

Fitted a China GPS speedo and a tacho/hour meter, haven't tested speedo yet, we'll see. Gauges and controls are a bit of a mismatch, but going for aesthetics with this thing is a bridge too far. Didn't have the correct holesaw at hand, so ignore the gark in the plastic where my stanley blade broke and hooned across the front.

IMG_20210123_184019 by John Bell, on Flickr

 

I think someone had asked about the hull detail underneath, I found it hard to capture this in a photo, but even harder to describe. There is a raised ridge on each side that runs most of the length of the flatter section. The bottom side is pretty flat once it gets past the initial pointy bit at the front. I think compared to other boats the front isn't very sharp or deep though, and I found when hitting bigger rapidy things, it would often push the nose sideways unless you were at 90degrees. Times like this you'd end up at full lock and throttle to get the nose pointing back upstream. Again I don't have much to compare this to, but it was managable.

IMG_20210102_112220_1 by John Bell, on Flickr

IMG_20210102_112133 by John Bell, on Flickr

Also there are plenty of garks and marks all over the bottom, but otherwise it still seems to be the correct shape. I guess if you hit something hard enough it could split? There is a large long line of plastic weld that runs lengthways, hard to get a good look at it as its close to where it rests on the trailer. I'm probably going to pretend everything is fine until water starts to come in from somewhere.

IMG_20210102_112144 by John Bell, on Flickr

Managed to squeeze the fuel filler neck hose back on for now, but its been cut too short, and will pop off again I imagine. So if anyone knows a source of cheap 54mm (2&1/8inch I think) fuel safe hose, I'm open to options. Picture of the filler not being attached.

2021-01-17_08-23-27 by John Bell, on Flickr

[rumrum]

best bit about pe boats is using a heat gun to lose and hide scratches

[johnnyfive]

Yeah I might have to try that, I haven't had a very good success with using heat on motorcycle plastics, but may have a play sometime if it starts to bug me

[UTERUS]

PE is a bit more forgiving than ABS, give the heat gun a whirl.

 

 

 

Nice work, good job pesting about with projects. 

[HighLUX]

Dont do yourself a mischief when you go up the motu

 

[rusty360]

19 hours ago, HighLUX said:

Dont do yourself a mischief when you go up the motu

 

How stunning does that river look

[johnnyfive]

Looks like a nice place to sink. 

I must have put these bits in the general jetboat thread, the other week we travelled from Thornton boat ramp up the Rangataiki river through Edgecumbe and TeTeko to the bottom of the Matahina dam.

8-2-21 by John Bell, on Flickr

VID_20210208_141549_exported_18697_1612755261877_2 by John Bell, on Flickr

That was nice. 

[johnnyfive]

I also had the finest Aliexpress parts delivery turn up, in the form of a replacement wear ring. It was cheap. Then the other day the a splined tool for removing the impeller turned up, and I had a few mins so had a fiddle.

IMG_20210209_182308 by John Bell, on Flickr

Here I will badly document some of the process, what lived inside these was a mystery to me before now, so thought it might be interesting for some.

IMG_20210222_152844_1 by John Bell, on Flickr

Undo these, that comes off.

IMG_20210222_152923_1 by John Bell, on Flickr

Check in here for oil, smells like bad gear oil mixed with ocean smells and bad. Also mostly empty.

IMG_20210222_153135_1 by John Bell, on Flickr

Undo these

IMG_20210222_153234_1 by John Bell, on Flickr

Secure this end

IMG_20210222_153712_1 by John Bell, on Flickr

Insert tool into impeller

IMG_20210222_152827_1 by John Bell, on Flickr

This didn't work

IMG_20210222_153721 by John Bell, on Flickr

This didn't work

IMG_20210222_153832_1 by John Bell, on Flickr

Put in vice, impeller unscrews

IMG_20210222_154907 by John Bell, on Flickr

A seal on the front of the shaft, note wear ring with missing material.

IMG_20210222_154933 by John Bell, on Flickr

A shaft with a thrust bearing

IMG_20210222_155100_1 by John Bell, on Flickr

Two needle roller bearings in the housing/stator.

IMG_20210222_155126_1 by John Bell, on Flickr

OE prop for documentation purposes

IMG_20210222_155207_1 by John Bell, on Flickr

Put the new wear ring in the freezer #meatflexing

IMG_20210222_155359_1 by John Bell, on Flickr

Get your favourite builders chisel and hack the old one out

IMG_20210222_165844 by John Bell, on Flickr

Admire your handywork in garking up the housing (its plastic too (its fine))

IMG_20210222_165821 by John Bell, on Flickr

Bash the new one in with a piece of wood

IMG_20210222_165956_1 by John Bell, on Flickr

Its slightly longer than what was in there, so sticks out a bit, better than the opposite I guess. You get what you pay for I guess.

IMG_20210222_170343 by John Bell, on Flickr

[johnnyfive]

This is looking out the ass of the nozzle thing, fairly well sandblasted, but seems sound. Note the two syphon holes for drawing the water out the bilge.

IMG_20210222_171103_1 by John Bell, on Flickr

I don't have bearings or seals right now, so gonna just give it a go with a mind to doing the lot at a later date.
Put the dicer back on, put all the other bits on. Then realise you'll have to pull it apart again to put oil in it when you get some.

IMG_20210222_171857_1 by John Bell, on Flickr

There is so little to these things its laughable. Can only find bearings and seals on Aliexpress for the later models, disappointing.

[johnnyfive]

Also here are two terrible photos of the bottom of Matahina Dam. Sploosh.

IMG_20210208_125236_1 by John Bell, on Flickr

IMG_20210208_125232 by John Bell, on Flickr

[johnnyfive]

Chucked a couple hooks on the the ute tray, if I can secure things, I might actually put stuff back there. 
Want to get my hands on some outboard style tote fuel tanks for extra capacity, as they sit a bit flatter than jerry cans. 

IMG_20210228_185605 by John Bell, on Flickr

Put some snappy clip things for the emergency paddles to sit in.

IMG_20210228_183643 by John Bell, on Flickr

I also fit some Aliexpress grab handles on the dash, then fitted some Aliexpress motorcycle review mirrors to that, as I thought it would be better than looking backwards all the time. I can also use it to mount my GPS on because 7/8th round(ish) bar. It looks terrible and I didn't take pictures cause the mirrors might not stay.

I ended up ordering bearings and seals for the blender unit, waiting on the courier. May try and get a freshened up pump on there before next weekends outing. 
Still need to fit towing eyes to the rear, and cam cleats to keep the tow rope out of the intake.