2 Boats Sunk, Retrieved, Floated, Towed Home and Running Again in Under 12 Hours.

[Bend-Lure]

That is pretty bad-ass to flip a three seater Sea-Doo. Kudos.

[Spot77]

Originally Posted by Bend-Lure

That is pretty bad-ass to flip a three seater Sea-Doo. Kudos.

Yeah, my wife is one of a kind. See the above post.

[Spot77]

So I'll keep the updates coming in case anyone is interested...maybe I'll inadvertently share some tidbit of knowledge that's useful to somebody.

Today I drained the fuel tank. It was WAY easier than I thought, aided by a siphon that I had purchased at Bass Pro last year for emergencies. Well it paid off big time. I used it to help drain the previously mentioned jet ski and get it afloat and now it made fast work out of draining 12 gallons of saltwater from my fuel tank.

It's the "self priming" kind that you shake a little to get it started. Very similar, if not exactly like the copper 3.5 gpm model here: http://www.simplesiphon.com/products/

There was about a half gallon left that I couldn't get with the siphon, so I simply used the prime bulb to shoot the remaining water into a gas can. It didn't even have a faint smell of gas to it.

Next step with the fuel system: Change the water separator filter and add a half gallon of fresh, heavily oiled gas to the tank and run that through the prime bulb again. That should clean out the remaining pint or so of water and lube the pickup tube pretty well. I'll burn that slightly watery gas through my weedwacker.

When the rest of the electrical items are taken care of, and I'm ready to get her in the water again, I'll refill the fuel tank completely with a little extra oil and some Startron to burn through. Again, the motor itself wasn't submerged so once the fuel tank, lines, and prime bulb are clean I should be ok there.

Any other suggestions on bringing the fuel system back up to speed?

[garlien]

I for one want to see pictures of you when you..."Lube the Pickup Tube".....

Does the wife know you are doing that kind of stuff ?

[Spot77]

Got all the wires traced to the appropriate electronics and gauges. I'll run some new wires since domeare the originals from 1993, and some others just need new connectors put on due to the massive corrosion at the battery terminals. Anything that had juice flowing through it when the battery submerged got trashed and brittle overnight pretty much.

Removed the cd player and trashed it. (Yeah I know.....I cd player on a little bass boat......but the boat has to pull double duty as a rec boat when my wife and kids want to go out )

[Spot77]

The 2 seats are FUBAR, so I'm going to replace those today and have the originals reupholstered....just the bottoms are ruined and I want to keep the original logo'd seats since they're incredibly rare. So I'll sport around with a pair of aftermarket seats for a while.

I nead to replace 2 small sections of decking. This isn't really related to the sinking, but the boat is 17 years old and there's just a hair of softness where the seats driver and passenger seat mount.

Any recommendations on where to get a 4x8 sheet of 3/4 or 1 inch marine plywood? Does anyone sell them in 4'x4' sections?

[Spot77]

Got the new trolling motor for it. The old one wasn't hurt in the sinking, but the insides of the foot pedal were seriously corroded and the speed knob was broken. I'll probably rebuild it over the summer but I want the boat ready for spring bassin' so I sprung for a 50lb Minn-kota which is more than enough for the boat.

Picked out new seats, and I'm looking for a marine upholsterer to fix the originals. Cajun was bought out by another company in the mid 90's and Cajun labeled OEM parts are non existent.

She started up easily today even after sitting for a few months. It settled into a rough idle and I know that's my fault for not running it periodically during its downtime. Hopefully some fresh gas, Startron and a good workout is all that's needed and not 3 carbs rebuilt. I'm still amazed that the starting battery works after being submerged in salwater and then not charged for 4.5 months. Had enough power to start the motor and then raise the motor so I could trailer it. It won't take a charge from my charger though; I keep getting different fault errors. Oh well....