new jet jon

[cerevisiaephilus]

Just picked up my first jet jon yesterday. Was all set to pull the trigger on an E-tec and Polarkraft, but then I found a Weldbilt dealer relatively close by and one in-person look at them taught me a lot about jon boats. Also, all I heard was negativity about the E-tecs from friends who have a lot of experience running outboard jets that I know and trust. I really wanted one, but everyone said Yamaha, Yamaha, Yamaha, so I bought a Yamaha. Went with a 60/40. That's a 1656 Weldbilt flat bottom, flat front with the 48" casting deck.

Now to get the fab shop down the street to build me a rower's seat box and I'm going to install oar lock blocks and Dierks anchor system. Hopefully get it registered tomorrow and on the water Tuesday evening.

 

[waterman]

That's a fine looking boat. Congratulations.

 

[NotAGuide]

Really nice!

 

[Seth]

Nice rig. Just curious, but what did your buddies not like about the Etec? They have been great motors for myself and many others around here.

 

[user 6672]

When you run that the 1st time just bring a lifejacket,gas,battery and GPS your speed..

Bet that thing just skips along!!

 

[cerevisiaephilus]

Thanks guys. Excited to get it out tomorrow.

Most of the complaints about the e-tec were high incidence of warranty issues. People love the motors, but lots of "out of the box" problems. The two stories that really changed my mind: (1) a friend that has guided in Alaska for several years works at a camp that has several Yamaha jets and one e-tec jet. He says the e-tec is constantly needing repairs. The Yamahas almost never. (2) The dealer where I bought the boat sells all brands. They claim they see about 50% of the e-tecs come back with an issue in the first year. The other half of the people that buy e-tecs love them and never have a problem. Yamahas almost never come back. This is what they claim. Who knows for sure, but they said they'd sell me an e-tec if that's what I wanted, but if I had the money for an e-tec, I should buy a Yamaha. Otherwise I should buy a Merc. They were also really big on Suzuki, but only had 100+hp Suzukis.

I really wanted an e-tec, but was nervous about getting a lemon. I'm not sure that's rational, but I figure if everyone I talked to said Yamaha is the way to go, I should get a Yamaha.

 

[hotshotinn]

Hello out there.I really like your boat.Where you from?I see you have snow Like I have here in Michigan.
I like weldbilt Boats from what I have seen of them.No dealer up here for them.I have a 1648 jon with a 40/30 Yamaha,love the motor real good

 

[overboard]

Nice looking boat! Should be well satisfied with that boat and motor; of course it will need just a few little tweeks! :lol:

 

[cerevisiaephilus]

I'm in Western New York State. I used to live in Northern Michigan. Pretty similar weather here.

Took the boat out yesterday for the first time. Definitely needs some tweaks. I didn't run it over about 1/3 WOT and it jumped right up on step. But it porpoises really badly. I need to move a lot of weight up front for starters. I had it trimmed all the way under. I'm a big dude. That's a big motor. That's a light boat.

Also, the motor overheated at idle. The tell tale seemed really weak and I noticed it steaming right before the alarm went off. I think there's something funny about how jet drives feed the water pump and I need to increase the idle RPM a little bit because it ran great when not at idle and the tell tale was strong and no alarm.

 

[loosecaboose]

Hope you get the new motor sorted out. I too recently purchased a new 60/40 yamaha jet. I have not had it out yet so I will be watching this thread to see what the fix is. I traded a 40/30 yamaha jet and never had any problems with it overheating at idle. I idled considerably at the lowest RPM settings particularly in hot weather conditions without issue. So I think your issue is something that should be corrected and under warranty. Good luck!

 

[hotshotinn]

If that's a new motor I would let the dealership figure out the overheating problem for you.My 40/30 will idle way down to low rpm.

The dealership where I bought my motor installed it but I ended up taking it off and redoing it.They had the motor mounted to low and I was not getting the speeds I should of been.I have in in the sweet spot now and she gets up on plane very quick and she runs faster than any boat on the river in its class.These dealerships seem to mount the motors to low for some reason.You should take a picture of your jet pump and bottom of the boat so these guys can take a look and maybe pinpoint the problem for you.just a thought

 

[Ranchero50]

Sounds like you picked up some junk.

Put a couple zip ties around your control cables and slide a couple 12" lengths of trimmer string in there to clean out the pisser hole when it act up.

 

[Tbradley]

cerevisiaephilus » 09 Mar 2014, 14:03[/url]"]Just picked up my first jet jon yesterday. Was all set to pull the trigger on an E-tec and Polarkraft, but then I found a Weldbilt dealer relatively close by and one in-person look at them taught me a lot about jon boats. Also, all I heard was negativity about the E-tecs from friends who have a lot of experience running outboard jets that I know and trust. I really wanted one, but everyone said Yamaha, Yamaha, Yamaha, so I bought a Yamaha. Went with a 60/40. That's a 1656 Weldbilt flat bottom, flat front with the 48" casting deck.

Now to get the fab shop down the street to build me a rower's seat box and I'm going to install oar lock blocks and Dierks anchor system. Hopefully get it registered tomorrow and on the water Tuesday evening.

Is that motor a 60/40? It looks to be the size of the Yamaha 40/30? Does it say 30 or 40 on the cowling? Just wondering.

 

[cerevisiaephilus]

It's definitely a 60/40. Under the hood it's all F60. It says "40 Jet Drive" on the cowling.

Lots of developments on the overheating at idle issue. Will report back after I run it with the modifications.

 

[loosecaboose]

Hope the mods work out. Please let us know what you did and the results. Thanks

 

[cerevisiaephilus]

Overheat at idle update:

Spoke with Outboard Jets and they said to fill bleed hole in the water pump housing or put a F60 stock water pump housing on which doesn't have the bleed hole. So I bought one for $20 and put it on. Still had the problem. Genuine overheat at idle after about 1 min of idling in 36 degree F water. Water at the tell-tale got hotter and hotter until alarm sounded.

I don't have a tach but my buddy has a nice timing light so we hooked it up, thinking the idle was low, but it was spot on, 750rpm. We adjusted the idle to 950-1000 and still had genuine overheats with hot tell tale water and alarm.

The weird thing is, as soon as the alarm sounds, if you open the throttle to get about 1500-1800 rpm, the tell tale gets ice cold in about 5 seconds, but alarm continues to sound. If you turn the motor off and immediately turn it back on, like 5 second after you turn it off, the alarm is off. You'd think if the alarm was accurately reporting realtime overheat condition, it would still be sounding when you turn the motor back on. Is this a computer glitch? That once the alarm sounds, it will continue to sound until you turn the motor off even if the engine isn't actually overheating?

Again, I took the boat out two different times last week and ran it at full throttle for several minutes at a time. Runs great. Ran it around for a couple hours on Tuesday, probably ran 4 or 5 miles just getting used to the boat, and never had an alarm. It only alarms if you let it run at low RPMs, 1500 is about as low as I've tested it that didn't overheat, 1000 is as high as I've tested where it still overheats.

Ran it on Wednesday with two buddies and fishing gear. We hit 27.5mph on GPS running straight upriver, current 2-4mph. Probably 800 pounds of dudes and gear. And we didn't really push it because I'm still in the break-in period.

I'm starting to get pissed because I didn't but the E-tec because everyone said they were lemons. I guess this Yamaha isn't a bad lemon, runs great, I love it, but it is a frustrating lemon! I guess I don't really ever need to idle?

 

[loosecaboose]

that's sucks man that you are still getting the over heat. did you take it to the dealer?

 

[mphelle]

+1 It's a bad time of year to have to drop your rig off at the dealer but you don't want to void your warranty.

Since you had the water pump apart, did you check to see if the half-moon key was installed that locks the rubber impeller to the driveshaft?

 

[cerevisiaephilus]

The place I bought it is 5 hours away, Ducky's Boats near Harrisburg PA. I called once and talked to somebody who said they'd call me back, but they never did. Last time I tried to call it went to voicemail and it said the voicemail was full.

Either way, I'm not taking it back down there. There is a local Yamaha dealer, but they don't know **** about jets. But like you guys said, bad time of year! I think I'm OK with this right now. I can use the boat and it's great. Just can't idle!

I didn't physically check the key on the water pump impeller, but I did notice that turning the drive shaft turned the impeller. And, water pressure seems fine over 1500 RPM, and there is pressure below that, do you think it would be that way if the impeller wasn't locked into place?

 

[Ranchero50]

How much time do you have on the motor. If it's still new then it's probably going to run warm at low speeds. Not sure on your engine but most newer engines are not recommended to idle for over 30-40 seconds when new. If it's a 2 stroke, you really need to run it hard to break it in quickly. If you glaze the rings on either type it'll never run as well as it should.