Factory B expansion chamber holeyoh

[NVJAY775]

This weekend was awesome! Great riding at the lake. The SJ started getting real sluggish when my kid was on it. He brought it in and it had a pretty gnarly exhaust leak coming from the expansion chamber next to the hull. Looks like the previous owner JB welded it... Kind of.

So... To get us through the weekend I got kinda crazy with a couple C minus cans and some black hi temp rtv. And some black hi temp duct tape.

The expansion chamber has a hole about an inch long and 3/8" wide on the outside seam weld next to the hull. I was hoping I could clean it up real nice and try to have someone weld it up? It's AL. Anybody else done this?

Thanks guys!
Jay

 

[Idok]

sure, find a welder who is good with aluminum and it shuldnt be a problem

 

[Waternut]

Probably from chaffing the side of the hull. Welding aluminum probablt won't be cheap but the plus side is the section is very small so it shouldn't be too bad. To prevent it from happening again, put some turf or something as a cushion between the chamber and the hull.

 

[NVJAY775]

Sounds cool. I'll get it welded and padded. Just wasn't sure if anybody had to have an AL pipe welded before. Thanks guys.

Jay

 

[Midlake Crisis]

This weekend was awesome! Great riding at the lake. The SJ started getting real sluggish when my kid was on it. He brought it in and it had a pretty gnarly exhaust leak coming from the expansion chamber next to the hull.

Jay (or anyone else who has had this kind of exhaust leak) can you give more details on the symptoms of "sluggish"?
I have been fighting an intermittent bogging problem and just discovered a pretty significant crack in the weld on my FP limited chamber on the hull side about 1/3 of the way back from the stinger.
I am just wondering if this might be the whole problem.

 

[Waternut]

There's no guarantee your exhaust leak is the only problem but an exhaust leak will make the ski feel like it's lost it's mojo.

 

[Cannibal]

When you take that chamber in, make sure the inside is completely clean. I mean clean aluminum, nothing else. Problem is, any carbon or anything on the inside is going to contaminate the weld puddle, so if you don't clean it, he will at your expense. Plus, he's probably going to want to back gas it, so there might be some prep time. I'm going to guess that this is going to cost about $125-150 to fix. I'd probably just keep an eye out for a nice used one for that price and save this one for when you meet a friend who happens to be a welder and is willing to do you a favor. Maybe trade for a few hours on the ski???

My step-dad is the lead welder at a boat shop. Now I can weld....er glue two pieces of metal together....but this man can lay a bead that is beautiful. It's nice having a connection.

 

[227]

I just had a B chamber welded up about a month ago. I basicly had the same problem, the weld wore down at the seam and split open from rubbing on the gas tank. I would have thought the gas tank would have gone first but it didn't. Like mentioned before clean the interior of the pipe as good as you can before you drop it off. I used a large plastic bucket and dumped in about 2 gal of gas. Let it soak for a while and then scrub down the interior with a parts cleaning brush. I then used a wire brush on the out side where the weld was going to go. I took it to a local certified welder and since I did all the prep work, The guy charged me $30 for about 15 minutes of weld time.

 

[NVJAY775]

Mine cost me $50 and it was a buddie that did it. I cleaned it out on the inside best I could. It is still working like a champ, but I will grab a nicer one some day.

But exhaust fumes make the ski run like poo all the way around. Big lack of oxygen.