I fired it up on the trailer started perfect, adjusted the timing a little at idle, all seemed good.

Went about 1/2 way across the the main part of the lake punched it a little and was feeling good.  Great response, seemed to be making good power.

Got around the 1st bend and noticed a lot of white smoke coming from the drivers side.  Hmm did I spill something on the logs or heads?  Better shut her down and inspect...

Shut down and climbed in back, suddenly there is a loud pop and water is GUSHING in.


The exhaust hose may not have been tightened up to the riser, or the riser just over heated from lack of water, anyways the hose melted away from the riser and was flooding my boat. 

Now I try to restart to get to shore.  Nope, another electrical issue and the post melted off in my effort to get it to start.

So, since my wife and son are in the boat with me I jump in the F'in freezing water and start swimming the boat towards shore.  I almost froze before I climbed back in the boat and just used my hands to get to shore.


Now, family is safe I inspect the hose and am able to get it back on enough that it could be called a small trickle.  I swap batteries from the one for the stereo, it turns over strong.  Now that the bildge pump is not falling behind,  I am no longer sinking

I load the family in the boat and push it into deep water, fire it up and race back to the dock.

Wow,  what a day!

Now to go find out what caused the problem and order some new hose and and a flap for the exhaust which melted also.

I am interested, send a pic please

I got some glenwood logs and OT pipes for ya! You want pics of them too?

Thanks for the covers   Took some work getting all the old paint off, but I think they definitely add to the bling factor

Looks good Charles. Where'd the spagetti go?

  Spaghetti?   

   Your boat's old wiring. 

... Speaking of which, I took it out Sunday and it really seemed like it was porpoising a lot over 55MPH  Would stiffening up the floor cause that?  Is there something I can to correct it like rideplate or a cav plate?  Hopefully it was just the rough water, but it really seemed like a rough ride compared to last year...

Maybe the hull's bottom shape moved when the old floor was removed/replaced? 

bingo, when i had my stringers re-done in my liberty he would NOT do it on the trailer because of this exact reason

How did they hold the boat up off the trailer?  or what kind of dolly did they use?

How did they hold the boat up off the trailer?  or what kind of dolly did they use?

they supported it from both sides of the transom and under the bow, the reason was to let the hull relax. it was not on a dolly

I think a ride plate is to help the boat get out of the water and ride less "wet", same for a cav plate but cav plate's aren't usually on jet boats. You can use a cav plate to help stop porpouising (sp?) but it's going to cost you a lot in terms of speed and gas mileage. IMO

That crossed my mind also.  I was thinking about how smooth the big wakeboard boats ride and thought that maybe it was just riding higher and combined with the rough water... well thanks for giving me hope