Drifting While In Neutral - Question

[treeskier]

I am not sure if this belongs here or in the LS2000 2 stroke section but as far as I know the reverse gates function essentially the same on all of the Yamahas.

My LS2000 continues to move (considerably) while in neutral. I am assuming that since the engines are cooled by the pumps moving water form outside the boat through the engines that some degree of movement is normal since the open cooling system requires the impellers to spin in order to circulate cooling water.

I have had the boat 2 full seasons and have become quite proficient at maneuvering the boat at slow speeds with the boat in neutral (finless). I can even walk the boat sideways to dock. The trouble comes in when I need to pull into a slip head on and while bumping the boat into reverse will slow my forward momentum it often comes down to a sequence of: slow down as much as possible; bump boat into reverse and back to neutral; switch off engines at the keys; grab the dock or piling to stop. Add current or a little wind and it can be an adventure.

Could my reverse gates be misadjusted and how would I know? This cant be the way those of you that have the 4 stroke boats that weigh twice as much do it.

Any help is appreciated.

 

[octavio3311]

I believe your throttle/buckets may need adjusting.
My AR190 would crawl forward in the neutral position - just a wee bit. I didn't know any different as this was my first jetboat, so I thought it was normal as Ive read there is no real neutral. However - my 212x - neutral position is neutral - she doesn't crawl at all.

 

[4x15mph]

You should not drift much and you can check the following
1) trolling speed should be 1300 +/- 50 rpm per the service manual. Check that your rpm's at idle line up with this
2) check the deflector gate on both jets. If the are not completely over the jet while in neutral, these should be adjusted

 

[maboat]

2) check the deflector gate on both jets. If the are not completely over the jet while in neutral, these should be adjusted

They should not be completely over the jet. That would be REVERSE.
In the neutral position, they should be about 50/50, but some tweeking is needed to adjust the bucket so that forward and reverse thrust are equal and cancel each other out.

 

[4x15mph]

My mistake and sorry for screwing that up. Here is what the manual has and I don't see any spec's listed in the service manual.

 

[OrangeTJ]

My SX210 does the same thing. It will pull pretty strongly in "neutral" - probably 1 -1.5mph. In fact, I use neutral as an extra slow no wake speed pretty regularly. My gates seem to be adjusted properly, such that lowering them would put the bottom edges of the buckets into the jet stream when in forward, likely causing a loss speed and/or cruising efficiency. It definitely can make for a lot of fast handwork when pulling into a slip or up to a dock. It's an annoying quirk, but I guess I've lived to learn with it and have found that pulling the levers back partially into reverse position gives me a much more true neutral. This, unfortunately, is yet one more reason my wife has a very hard time getting the hang of piloting our boat.

 

[maboat]

Frankly I rarely have a need to idle the engines in neutral. I just kill the engines. Thats my neutral.

 

[Gym]

Think I would adjust your buckets some. You will get some forward creep but any more than that you are out of adjustment. It may just be caused by cable stretch.

 

[Julian]

Agree with the above....if your boat moves forward so much that it is another idle speed when in neutral...your buckets need adjusting.