1997 Ski Nautique restoration - Advice please!

Hi all, we're restoring a Masters Green Ski Nautique bubble back with the 285hp HO engine. The upholstery is finished and we're just finishing off the engine before getting stuck into the hull.

We've come across a few areas where some advice would be very welcome and no doubt many of you will have owned or worked on one of these boats or engines in the past.

Used to look like this:







Now looks like this:





A few questions:

I think we've routed the transmission cable the wrong side of the exhaust header so will change that unless I'm mistaken.

Should the blower hose be routed as shown or should it be underneath the exhaust running along the bottom of the hull? (it was mssing when we bought the boat)

Tha tranmission had been replaced less than 50 hours before we bought the boat. Does the hose routing and cooler location look correct? Same for water strainer?

It is a high hour engine (1800) so we did a total top end rebuild. It turned out to be in great shape; no wear ridge in the bores, no signs of wear anywhere else, cross hatching visible in the bores etc which makes us think it has been rebored recently. Do these pistons look original to you guys? I expected the piston heads to look different with ellipses for valve clearance rather than the rectangular cut outs.



The floor panel aft of the engine is a bit spongy and sags slightly when stepped on. Does anyone have a suggestion for reinforcement? Should it have had some sort of original support between the panel and the hull anyway?

I've got a new throttle cable to install. I'm aware that I need to somehow attach it to the old one and pull it through but any additional tips & advice would be great!

How do I replace the transmission oil? Can you just suck it out as with the engine oil or is there a different method? Anyone know the spec for the transmission oil?

The engine ran (roughly) when we got the boat and it turned out that the carb was jammed solid. No idea how it ran at all! Carb now completely rebuilt but can't find a guide online on how to set it up now. Is there a guide somewhere for this?

Any advice gratefully received! Thanks guys!
Calum

Great job getting her into shape! Here is the best picture I could find of how the oil cooler and hoses are mounted. A hose connects to the outlet of the cooler and runs up to the intake of the raw water pump. When you pull off the hose to the pump to winterize,the cooler being upright drains easily. The intake hose into the cooler could be run better on this one though.

very nice looking job. I about died when I saw that 1st picture of the rear seat base....who would do that?


john

hmmm....no back seat? School or camp boat maybe.

very nice job on the new back seat tho...looks original.

john

yup..school boat. You are gonna love it. Pretty sure no PP in '97.


john

those dished pistons are what i found when i opened my engine...
pretty sure they are standard to the engine build

for transmission oil..best way is to get a suction/siphon type of device, and suck it out through the dipstick hole. I used a brake bleeder tool, as the hose is small enough to fit all the way down to the bottom of the transmission case.

Please explain what you did to reinforce floor panel. Mine is starting to feel spongy in spots.

Calum,
There's no need to remove the distributor to correct the firing order, just reposition the plug wires on the cap. Start with making sure the #1 cylinder is TDC on the compression stroke then place the #1 wire in the cap closest to where the rotor is pointing. From there, follow the firing order with the other wires.

Are you sure you're starting with the #1 at the compression stroke? Also, with the reduction trans, your engine should be a standard and not a reverse rotation.

And does a standard rotate anti-clockwise from the rear?

Noticed that yesterdays firing order was correct apart from 2 and 3 being transposed. That could explain the rough running yesterday so configured it the same as yesterday but changed the 2 and 3 leads around. Fired right up and sounds smooth. Bizarrely, the rotor doesn't seem to point at No 1 when No pistion is at TDC. Is that possible? It has been rebored before we got the boat so the engine has been in bits before - could something have been put in incoorectly before? It's certainly running now.

Calum,
Yes, a standard rotation engine turns counterclockwise when looking at it from the rear. Now that it's running, get the timing light hooked up.

Good that it's running now but if you're looking for an explanation about the rotor not pointing at #1 terminal on the cap I'll throw this out there.

A couple of times Pete has mentioned getting the engine so that #1 cylinder was at TDC on the COMPRESSION stroke.

You mention the rotor pointing at #6 terminal on the cap when you did this.

That would be because you had the engine rotated so that #1 was at TDC on the EXHAUST stroke. When #1 is at TDC on the exhaust stroke, #6 is at TDC on the compression stroke and the rotor is pointing at #6 terminal on the cap. (you're firing 180 degrees out)

When you rotate the engine by hand to get the timing pointer lined up with the TDC mark you/ve got a 50/50 chance of getting it right unless you do something like put your thumb over the #1 plug hole so you feel the compression as you're rotating it to TDC. If you don't feel any compression then you're at TDC on the compression stroke.

You could also put a little rag lightly in the hole and let the compression blow it out to show that you're on the compression stroke

Maybe you did this, but I don't see anywhere where you said it

Sounds like it's running now so that's a good thing

Yup, that looks like the explanation thanks. As usual, if there is a 50/50 chance of getting it wrong, there's a 99% chance that I'll have it that way!

Well, thanks for the help guys, it seems to be running pretty nicely now, will run it longer during the week to check choke and idle circuit are all operating ok. Will be tricky getting timing spot on since the tacho isn't working. I'm no electrical whizz but seems to me that there isn't much to go wrong with the tacho so it probably isn't the instrument. The Perfect Pass display isn't working either, the horn is rather anaemic, the alarm seems to beep all the time and the fuel guage seems iffy too. I'm thinking bad earth so might put an earth busbar
in later.

Having sorted the engine this morning, then managed to change the Morse throttle, replace the throttle cable, fit the underwater LED, and do some gelcoat repairs ready for wetsanding the hull. Seems never ending!