New to me 242 Limited S

[josephjbrown]

Hello all,

We recently picked up a 2014 Limited S that the broker knew very little about as it appears after our first few experiences with it and I have some questions. This may not be the right place but I figured it's a good place to start.

1) The boat was advertised as fresh water use but the jet pumps definitely have some barnacle growth on them. I've looked at a few chemicals to strip them off and while they're all old and dried up I'm sure they're robbing some power from the boat in friction. Should I be patient & remove the pumps over the winter (New England has plrnty of down time unfortunately) and have the soda blasted or something like that?

2) There's cobra jet fins and the bottom plates that act as the stop for the fins are loose and seem to rattle a bit. I'm afraid to try to tighten it too much because the pump is aluminum and stripping that bottom steering bolt would be very bad from what I can tell. Does anyone have any input that could be helpful around the cobra jet on this year specifically? the boat still has tons of side slip and over steer but I expected that and with two engines I'm able to overcome that for the most part so I am strongly considering removing the fins completely. Thoughts? Opinions?

3) Tower courtesy lights aren't working which is a minor annoyance but the breaker/fuse seems ok. Thoughts? Opinions?

 

[David Martin]

Keep the Cobra fins.....just remove and clean them up and reinstall and bolt them tight. They help in slow speed steering. As for the plate restore I say go for it.......my plates and intake gates are taking some damage as my boat is 11 years old.........my plate coatings are starting to flake off it looks like paint chips I'm not sure if its power coated or epoxy coated....... either way it needs some love.

I'm going to remove one plate as a test sand it smooth feather edge all the coating that remained and spray the plate with truck bed liner (raptor liner) and see how she holds up. I restored a 45 year old 11.5 ft Boston whaler fishing boat and used Raptor liner on the hull top side and raptor liner as bottom paint its been on the Whaler in salt water for 4 years and it still look great and has not come off.

Good luck you will love the boat and this site

 

[josephjbrown]

Thanks David, I appreciate the feedback! I did decide to keep the fins and may even upgrade them in the future. I did also find out that the bottom plate is designed to have some play in it and shouldn’t be tight. Unfortunately I found that out the hard way when the bottom bolt fell out underway and I snapped off my deflector nozzle because I’m an idiot and put the assembly back together without thread lock. It just slipped my mind and I ended up paying for it.

Any idea how the tower plug and tower lights are set up? I have switched power at the plug but can’t seem to get power to the lights. I’m thinking a wire is broken but that seems odd in an enclosed tower.

 

[Cobra Jet Steering LLC]

Ok for the steering I suggest you ask the manufacturer and inventor directly so send some pictures of your system to jeff@cobrajetsteering.com before you do anything to them.

 

[josephjbrown]

Thanks Jeff, you already bailed me out with the new bottom plate and all is well. I may eventually upgrade as mentioned but for now we are good to go.