Crackofdawn

Sorry to bother you again YamaDoo, you've been so helpful! I've been messing around with the Skis in the garage a bit since the lake last weekend and charged the battery on the Seadoo as well as replaced the plugs and I noticed that both when I started the Ski (seadoo) today, and also 4 or 5 days ago when it hadn't run in a few days, it starts funny. Basically when I hit the start button it goes "clunk" like nothing is going to happen, then .5-1 second later it just starts right up. Is this normal? I turned it off and then turned it back on after 15 seconds and it fired right up no clunk - just wonder if on a cold engine it's normal for the Ski to clunk like that and hesitate before starting? It's making the same sound it was making on the water with a dead battery where pushing the button would go "clunk" but then nothing would happen after that - but now it just starts right up after the clunk as if nothing was wrong. Just weird, that's all!

YamaDoo

No problem at all, glad to help. Sounds like the battery might be weak or the starter is getting old and sticking. Did you trickle charge it for 8 hours? I know on my SeaDoo it will do this if the batt is on the weak side.

However if it still starts each time I would not worry much about it.

Crackofdawn

Well - the battery was 100% dead at the lake last weekend (the battery looks new though, I imagine the person I bought the Ski from bought a new battery this season). After I accidentally ran the battery down at the lake the ski wouldn't even make a clunk sound, just beep when I hit the start button. There was a big fiasco where we got the ski jumped and then probably didn't run it long enough to charge it and it wouldn't start again later.

Anyway, I trickle charged it 2.5 hrs the night we got home from the lake and then tested it and it started up (with that first clunk), then, yesterday I charged it for an additional 3.5 hours and replaced the spark plugs and started it and it clunked once like before, and then started up (but after running it 20 seconds or so I stopped it, and started it again and it started right up).

Anyway, I put it back on the trickle charger this morning and will have my wife remove it after 3 hours which will be 9 total hours of charging, but not continuous. I'm wondering if, since the battery was 100% dead, how long it would take to trickle charge it back to full, or if that is even possible - I want to avoid getting to the lake tomorrow and having a dead battery either dropping it in or later after beaching it and trying to restart it. Any idea how long it would take to really get a good charge on there, or is the battery beyond being able to have a full charge because it was drained to ~0? Would it make sense to flip my trickle charge to 6amp instead of 2, and charge at 6amp for an hour or so to give it a good jolt? And if I do this, should I remove the jet ski wiring from the battery first?

Thanks in advance! Trying to avoid buying another $40-50 battery but definitely will if I need to - better than being stuck on the lake!

YamaDoo

Do you have a smart charger that can sense when a battery if bad? Because if you do and it is still charging it without codes then your battery is good. It takes about 8 hours to trickle charge a depleted battery. And no you don't want to go above 4 amps to charge.

Crackofdawn

I just have a plain old $25 motorcycle battery charger that can trickle at 2a/12v or do 6a/12v - it's been on for a total of around 9 hours or so (and i had started the ski a few times in between there). I did some googling and will be using a voltmeter when I get home to check the battery voltage to see if it's at/above 12. Also will check the cells and see if the liquid is low (didn't know you could do that and fill with distilled water).