Install That D Plate NOW!
Hello. I'm giving everybody a friendly warning.
Now that the Waverunner season is over here in NW Ohio, I decided it was time to remove the catalytic converter on my 2002 Yamaha XLT 1200 and install a D plate. The Waverunner ran great all summer, and there was nothing mechanical that mandated the removal of the catalytic converter, so far as I knew. I had just read on this forum that after about 10 years the catalytic converters in Yamaha Waverunners have a tendency to break down and fall apart. That's something I wanted to avoid, and worried about happening, even though I believed that prior owners had religiously used Yamalube in the ski. (Use of Yamalube exclusively is supposed to prevent, or at least hinder, the breakdown of the catalytic converter in Yamaha skis)
When the converter on my Waverunner was removed it revealed that the inner coil of the converter had broken loose from its housing and was rattling around inside the housing. The inner coil had bounced back and forth, front to back, so many times the sides of the coil had been beat back and the coil stuck out more than a half of an inch from the back of the housing, when it shouldn't have stuck out at all. Even more, the pounding of the inner coil against the back of the housing had caused the metal around the back of the housing -- around the retaining ring that held the inner coil in the housing -- to crack at least a third of the way around the back of the housing. It broke right through the welds. I have tried to post pictures, albeit fuzzy, as to what the housing and the protruding inner coil look like.
If the metal around the retaining ring at the back of the housing had let go it would have let the inner coil pass on down the exhaust system, where it did not belong and could have caused major damage. I was just lucky that I replaced the converter when I did. Another hard summer's use bouncing on the waves could have resulted in engine failure if the inner coil of the converter had busted loose from the housing and clogged up the exhaust.
So during this downtime (at least in the north) all of you who have XL, XLT, or other Yamaha skis that still have catalytic converters in them, take your exhaust systems apart, or take your ski to your mechanic and have him/her take the exhaust apart, and replace the converter with a D plate and chip. Even at a shop it shouldn't cost over $300.00 for the plate, the chip, and labor, and that's money better spent than paying for repairs that are necessary because a red-hot converter inner coil went to places in your exhaust system where it shouldn't be.
It's time for the converters to be falling apart, so it's time for us to replace them before they do. Preventative medicine is usually the best medicine.
Just trying to be friendly,
Z
former sea doo owner, will never own one again
Last edited by ZARDOZ; 11-03-2012 at 07:15 PM.
Reason: typos
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