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wet transom through hull fittings
wet transom,any tips? i have a 78 mckee craft .i know its not wood shame on me. transom is made of two sheets of ply and three sheets of fiberglass inside outside and middle bonding it together. it had many through hole fittings screws kicker bracket etc. most unused now the top by the motor was also capped with allum. now rotted letting water seep into the ply. poor design . would like to keep the skuppers but i cant find a replacement that would be flush to the back of the transom to let te rubber flap seal.would i be better off making the holes larger plugging with a dowwel and six ten? then drill out the dowwel leaving a fiberglassed hole to plug with normal rubber expandoplug?will a hallogen yellow worklight really hot one dry out the core enough?it is currently garraged and out of the weather.use git rot or something simmilar?i was planning on putting a 4x4 fiberglass tube across the whole back top bolting the engine and the u bolts at the outer corners accross the whole transom then wrapping a gusset to the sides to stiffen it.need to dry it then seal it so it wont freeze and crack.will west system stick to damp ply?any suggestions?
2 replies:
RE: wet transom through hull fittings
joel is exactly right. The tempation to add easy fixes such as Git Rot will not work in the end when the transom is wet and rotten. You can remove the fiberglass skin from either the rear or front of the transom - though the inside skin is usually harder to get to if you have bulkheads laminated on. Google fiberglass transom replacement for videos cover this work. Jamestown Distributers has a link covering this also:
http://www.jamestowndistributors.com/userportal/document.do?docId=283
A thin grinder blade works good and will produce a narrow cut tup and hrough the skin. This is a very demanding and messy job so you need to pump yourself up for it and think it though at each step. Needless to say when repaired always drill oversized holes to mount things -fill with thickened epoxy. then drill the correct size leaving a ring of epoxy around the bolts.
RE: wet transom through hull fittings
» Submitted by Zackin, Joel - Thu, 7/3/14 » 11:52 AM
Dear RI,
You need to get the wet plywood out. The plywood is your core material, giving the thin fiberglass layers strength. If you encapsulate the wet plywood in epoxy it will continue to rot. When it rots enough your motor will fall off with half you transom.
My opinion is: You need to take off one side of the glass (inside or out side the boat) repalce the plywood and re-glass.
Wet cores are the reason many boats are cut up. I cut up a beautiful Snipe sailboat last summer because the balsa cored hull had been compromised (holed) by a bad trailer. we discovered it too late and most of the balsa core was wet and rotting. Way too big a repair job. hopefully your transom is not too big!
I realize this is not what you want to hear, but good luck!
Joel