Flipping couches for fun and profit

[Myself]

China made aftermarket carb?

 

[WFO Speedracer]

China made aftermarket carb?

Exactamundo !

 

[Big Kahuna]

If you have a caliper take a measurement of the o-ring sizing and the diameter of the bearing groove or at least a size that is close then go to McMaster carr they should have what you need . Those only keep the bearings from spinning in the cases , in reality it will work fine without them if you put a pink layer of red locktite on the bearings it will do the same thing .

A Pink Layer of Red Loctite??????????

 

[WFO Speedracer]

Yes BK , that is straight out of Kawasaki's KTEC news service bulletins , circa 1992 , when you spread it out on the bearings correctly it appears pink , if you know , you know.

Original Kawasaki K-Tech News Technical Magazine Bundle 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995 | eBay

Original Kawasaki K-Tech News Technical Magazine Bundle. 11 in total.

www.ebay.com

 

[WFO Speedracer]

The customer is bringing me an OEM carb to rebuild , like me he has a ton of stuff laying around, this is probably my oldest and best customer, I lost count but I have probably repaired over 20 skis for him over the years now , I used to do one a month for him years ago ,now I am repairing them for his kids and the yellow GTI is for his granddaughter.

Monday he is bringing two more skis over for me to repair , two 96 or 97 GTX's , one need an engine because the inner crank seals are toast, he is also bringing a 787 that I built for him years ago that he has sitting on the shelf to install in the ski.

I have to take a ride over to his place soon to see exactly what he has over there that is buildable or that I can use , we may strike some kind of a deal on clearing out his lot and mine over the next few years .

 

[WFO Speedracer]

Just for the Halibut I timed myself to see how long it would actually take me to remove this Fakuni carb , 9 minutes from start to holding the carb in my hand , that is getting tools out of the truck and everything so yeah , that old man's still got it.

There is a reason my nickname is Speed Racer lol.

 

[orangefinger]

thx that all i needed to know and was hoping

If you have a caliper take a measurement of the o-ring sizing and the diameter of the bearing groove or at least a size that is close then go to McMaster carr they should have what you need . Those only keep the bearings from spinning in the cases , in reality it will work fine without them if you put a pink layer of red locktite on the bearings it will do the same thing .

for

 

[WFO Speedracer]

The customer brought me an OEM carb off of a 97 GTI last night , this morning I went through it , cleaned it and put it back together , it was very clean inside and the only thing that took some work to get going was the accell pump and I put in a new main diaphragm , it is now ready to water test again , hopefully this will wrap this one up , the 97GTI is right behind it and hopefully will be finished tomorrow .

He has a bunch of project skis over there he is never going to fix and we may work out a deal on them at some point, I really need to take a ride over there and see what he has .

I was sick most of Saturday and all day Sunday , yesterday I still wasn't 100% and I went at it way too hard , I did pretty much the same this morning so things are moving really slowly here , I still have to replace that tire on the trailer before I can water test it again , maybe by tomorrow.

 

[WFO Speedracer]

I am always keen to start a new project , now finishing one well that's a different story but anyway here goes.

The 97 GTX is not quite done yet it's close but we will circle back to it in a bit , meet Big Nasty , aptly named because it's big and it's damn sure nasty , the best part about Big nasty is it is at the best possible starting point, it's free and it's on a trailer , I have zero dollars in the ski and the trailer.

The trailer will get new tires and maybe lights but that's all it needs , Big nasty on the other hand needs an engine , on that last two skis that went out the door he brought me an engine , I pulled the top end and it was toast but the bottom end is good and on another ski I have a perfect top end on an engine that had a rod let go , so there is my engine .

Counting what I allotted him for the engine I now have $200.00 in this ski. , it will need new graphics , these are all there but not that nice up close , it needs two new bumper corners and a new rub rail on the left side , the hood is broken in several places, I have the correct color hood on another Big Nasty twin at my other shop , it will also need the seats recovered , the seats are not horrible and the foam is in excellent condition , the footwell pad for the back will just be cut from a sheet of turf , I should have a good OEM one for a pattern at the other shop .

I found a good carb and rotary valve cover the other day so that's sorted, now all I have to do is make it happen . My goal this Winter is to get several of these skis going and mechanically sound , then pickle them up and store them in my shop till next season , I will sand ,clean and buff the hulls and get them ready for new graphics , next year all I will have to do on these is install the graphics and recover the seats, a one day job , install a new battery fire it off test ride it and send it out the door , at least that is the game plan .

The first stop is the car wash where I spent $5.00 knocking the scuzzy stuff off the ski , it will need a lot more cleaning before it is done. , now in at $205.00 .

 

[WFO Speedracer]

I spent about 30 minutes with 2000 grit sandpaper to get the rest off , It has a couple of small gelcoat dings, smaller than the head of a pencil, should be a easy fix , dot it with a carbide bit on a die grinder pull in gelcoat mixed with cabosil then sand and buff , no big deal.

I can go back any color I want but the large Seadoo graphics are good and have an green outline so I am probably going back green , it just may not be this green , I think a darker green like on the 97 GTX would be lovely . Here she is all cleaned up .

 

[WFO Speedracer]

I really don't remember what exactly was going on with this ski , I do remember it was electrical , so I started back at the beginning.

The engine turns over nicely but it has no spark, a quick check of the Exciter coil on the stator gave no AC voltage reading off the black -red wire so , the stator is bad , on these particular skis the engine is set way back in the ski so replacing this stator should be easy enough and I have one in stock , compression seems good , the fuel system still has to be dealt with but I think this ski may be a really easy fixer upper.

 

[WFO Speedracer]

I have been watching this series on Amazon Prime called Flipping bangers , it's two English blokes flipping cars at the lower end of the spectrum, it occurred to me that I am doing similar just with jet skis, the difference is I don't have to go out and buy skis, I already have them here , they are already paid for and I am not constrained to building and selling a ski in a week like they are attempting to do , if you have watched the series you know that does not always work out as planned.

My time frame is going to be more like one or possibly two per month when I get the system set up , rolling and everything is in place , like the show that probably won't always go as planned either, it never does lol.

 

[orangefinger]

once u get into your routine and you have extra parts the process starts getting faster and faster, the extra parts often help to bring quick results in diagnose and repair completions .... You also will most likely start working on multiple projects simultaneously, while waiting or ordered parts .

I put 8 skis together under 2 months which some of them needed complete engine rebuilds.