Water entering through clean out

[Shannon]

Nice job @Grover70 and thanks for posting all the results so we can see what was happening! Yeah the quality control is lacking on these things. I am always finding imperfections that drive me nuts! But on the bright side like Japanese cars these boats are very reliable.

 

[Grover70]

Your last note, about talking to us, is exactly what I told them. I said we know you're not a luxury yacht company, but if you got ahead of the 8 ball and just read the forums you'd see small, mostly just irritating issues, that can be fixed with an extra few ounces of silicone, a longer tube, a tweaked adjustment. Not big expensive solutions, but things that you just see on the surface. We know the engines are solid, now just make the rest of the boat out of the engines!!

 

[Grover70]

Sad to hear. Somehow I thought the 2017 fish would be tweaked for the better.

It's a shame. How hard can it be to design a system for a marine engine that doesn't leak? I would venture to guess it's done all the time

 

[LeeFlan7]

I gotta check that out, got a feeling I need to seal that up too and obviously grab some marine grease

 

[Cobra Jet Steering LLC]

That seems to be what happens when too many people are trying to make decisions in a huge corporation. I recall the executives at Yamaha were buying my steering and adding it to their personal boats but Yamaha told them that they had so much money invested in promoting the safety of not having any prop or lower unit in the back of the boat that they could not add the steering since it was attached to the nozzles.
So somewhere they though the lack of control leading to crashes was a better option and years later they decided to add steering to the lowest point of the hull knowing if a foot was under it the rudder would crush it, but they chose that according to the patent office records during their patent application rather than Pay a small amount for the licensing of my steering During the process they kept getting turned down for a patent due to the things they wanted to do having already been patented. The idea to add a rudder behind a keel in order to qualify for a patent was suggested by the patent examiner if my memory serves me correctly. In my first patents I placed my tie rod operated rudders away from the dead center of the hull to avoid them being at the lowest point so they did not have issues with contacting the ground , I watched this process in public par at the patent office quite intently. Their design for steering is arguably dangerous for people in back of the boat standing next to it. It is also not as effective as it could have been had they done it like I did on my first jet boat. They could have had their steering and a safety feature for a lot less money that what they spent doing it the way they did. But they never even tried.
As for the clean out plugs I understand that Yamaha told people religiously that they installed the clean out plug wrong and that was why it blew out . My ez lock when used as instructed proved that the dogs were releasing under pressure due to a few issues with the locking device, I showed this in my video.

I also experimented with stronger springs in the plug and that is documented on the old web site, I chose not to do the spring because if you change their original parts you void any possibility of a warranty claim if the plug still failed, so I designed the ez lock to simply backup their original parts , make it so you can actually see that the dogs were locked and tell you if the internal lock failed while preventing the plug from coming out.
I was happy that Yamaha redesigned their plug but I am also hearing about problems with it as discussed in this thread. So it is what it is sometimes big corporations hire foolish or incompetent engineers Like Takata who knows what politics goes on in big corporation and what kick backs etc.
All I know is the jet boat industry was in serious trouble when I came along and started addressing the huge issue of lack of steering, so these boats could become family boats, fishing boats, recreational boats etc. now they have a much broader customer base. It took 16 years for Yamaha to change the cleanout plug design to a new one , hopefully they will get on the path of correcting anything that needs to be corrected a lot faster on this one rather than blaming the end user. That's my opinion on it I could be wrong.

 

[Grover70]

Jetboaters Commander, that's more than informative what you wrote. It speaks to a deeper issue of safety on the water and listening, then enacting, your customers needs instead of telling them what they are. Our voices aren't loud enough and that needs to change somehow.

 

[Grover70]

I gotta check that out, got a feeling I need to seal that up too and obviously grab some marine grease

I'd lay odds that you're probably going to find a super thin strip of silicone not doing much good. It's an easy fix though.

I took my FSH out yesterday and had, quite literally, a bone dry bilge at the end of a three hour trip. Not a drop came out for the first trip since I've had the boat. Wonderful result.

 

[Grover70]

It's a shame. How hard can it be to design a system for a marine engine that doesn't leak? I would venture to guess it's done all the time

It is, and all it took was some silicone. The bilge was completely dry yesterday after a trip out on the river. Just do it right the first time Yamaha.

 

[Amar Nanduri]

Can this thread be made as part of the FAQ? Would help guys like me in fixing their boats especially before the Bimini trip. Don't want to overwork the bilge pumps.

 

[Anthony_bonanno83]

Result and yet another job a Yamaha boat owner has to complete for the factory!!!

I had to reverse my one way drains. Factory installed them the wrong way so any water in the boat would not exit out. Makes you wonder what else theu did wrong!?

 

[Grover70]

I had to reverse my one way drains. Factory installed them the wrong way so any water in the boat would not exit out. Makes you wonder what else theu did wrong!?

That's just unacceptable. What kind of inattention or just plain laziness explains that? It would seem you have to TRY and install a one way drain the wing direction. What's going on over there?

 

[Brian Filas]

Adding onto the long list of complaints. Why is Yamaha even using silicone on this boat at all? Might as well use chewing gum. At least it would be easier to remove when I am re-doing all the fittings that they should have done properly the first time. I highly recommend not using silicone anywhere on your boat (only real use is certain plastic to plastic applications).

Think of it like herpes - You might forgot its there most of the time but it will eventually flair up (leaks) and you will never really get rid of it (removal). Here is a great article on the different uses for each sealant / adhesive.

https://www.westmarine.com/WestAdvisor/How-to-Select-Sealants-and-Caulk

I personally try to use Butyl Tape or 4200 on most things. It is expensive, sure. But I reminded what my grandfather used to say "never enough time/money to do it right the first time, but always enough time/money to do it again".

 

[Grover70]

Adding onto the long list of complaints. Why is Yamaha even using silicone on this boat at all? Might as well use chewing gum. At least it would be easier to remove when I am re-doing all the fittings that they should have done properly the first time. I highly recommend not using silicone anywhere on your boat (only real use is certain plastic to plastic applications).

Think of it like herpes - You might forgot its there most of the time but it will eventually flair up (leaks) and you will never really get rid of it (removal). Here is a great article on the different uses for each sealant / adhesive.

https://www.westmarine.com/WestAdvisor/How-to-Select-Sealants-and-Caulk

I personally try to use Butyl Tape or 4200 on most things. It is expensive, sure. But I reminded what my grandfather used to say "never enough time/money to do it right the first time, but always enough time/money to do it again".

Thank you. I'll look say the link.

 

[Scottintexas]

@Amar Nanduri I've added this to the FAQ under "how to stop you FSH from leaking" tab,

 

[Amar Nanduri]

@Amar Nanduri I've added this to the FAQ under "how to stop you FSH from leaking" tab,

Thanks @Scottintexas . Is this applicable to the SX and AR models also?

 

[I know You know]

Thn


Thank you! I finished the project today:

I siliconed the screw holes and the edges of the tray frame. Poured the water and noticed there was still a leak where the factory "silicone" of the tray met the frame -
View attachment 54096

Then I decided to silicone the underside of where the tray met the the frame...around the factory sealant. And as a last measure. I added rubber 5/16" marine grade rubber around the perimeter of the clean out tray. The results were better than I expected. Not a drop went through the frame compared to the waterfall I had prior to doing anything. Based on what I saw before, there had to be a few gallons making it in there over the two hours I was out.

View attachment 54097 View attachment 54098 View attachment 54100


PROJECT COMPLETE!!

EXCELLENT work, thank you for sharing, have had my boat out for only two weeks and this week my bilge was working overtime. I am going to test this area tomorrow and hopefully this will solve my leaking issue.

 

[Grover70]

EXCELLENT work, thank you for sharing, have had my boat out for only two weeks and this week my bilge was working overtime. I am going to test this area tomorrow and hopefully this will solve my leaking issue.

You bet. I hope it all works out. I don't know if I mentioned that I actually had some water coming through the bilge drains. I re-siliconed those as well. The seal wasn't 100%. Safe boating!

 

[I know You know]

You bet. I hope it all works out. I don't know if I mentioned that I actually had some water coming through the bilge drains. I re-siliconed those as well. The seal wasn't 100%. Safe boating!

How did you access those thru hulls?

 

[Grover70]

How did you access those thru hulls?

I just removed the black plastic plug covers on the transom with a screwdriver, siliconed the covers, and reattached them. The same for the changing room drain covers. If that's what you meant? I didn't need any special tools or access. Unfortunately, I found there was NO silicone on the changing room drain plugs. The transom drain plugs had very little and none around the screws which is where the water must have been trickling in.

 

[Tonkatoy]

I purchased the service manual for the 190FSH.
Makes a good bathroom read...

Interesting it calls for SS (silicone sealant) in all places that it should be. They just didn’t put it there...

Something funny about Yamaha’s silicone is that it doesn’t stick to anything. It just forms a gasket at best that doesn’t adhere to the hull.

I know this has been covered here. But I can’t get over how they f’d this part up.