Aluminum Center Console Transom replacement, Refoam and drainage.

[Marinerbill210]

Hello to all. New to the fourm here and seeking some advice and experience redoing some things in my 1988 Starcraft Mariner 210. The boat had sat for around 5 years before i acquired it. There was some water that sat and the transom is rotted and the foam had gotten saturated as well. I have all the deck wood out now and will be removing tbe motor this week to get the old transome put and new one back in. That part should be fairly straight forward but what im curious about is drainage under the floor and foam. I will be removing all old foam and repourong with new after onstalling some sort of drainage system. Was thinking pvc in half and glues down to bottom? This is where id like some input to see what others have done and came up with.

thanks in advance and i will try and get photos up soon.

-Bill

 

[Scott Danforth]

or pour it, and keep the boat stored with a cover and the drain plug out.

 

[GA_Boater]

Welcome aboard.

Since expanding pour in foam does what it is supposed to do, expand and fill every nook and cranny, any added drainage channel will be filled with expanding foam.

Far better to make sure the hull is water tight before blowing foam and do what Grumps said. - Cover it bow up with the plug out.

 

[Marinerbill210]

GA Boater, would you mind elaborating on the "cover it bow up with plug out" part?

 

[jbcurt00]

GA Boater, would you mind elaborating on the "cover it bow up with plug out" part?

Rehab the boat then store it

Covered (to keep most of the rain and snow out of it)
Bow high (so water drains toward the bilge plug)
W the plug out (so the water that makes it back to the bilge drain, gets put)

that'll go a really long way towards making the boat and its plywood compoments last for a long time.....

Slow death for boats (tinnys and glassers):
Uncovered to weather in the elements
Bow down so water pools in the bow
Drain plug in so water cant get out

Let it sit uncovered thru a couple winters of freeze thaw cycles and ya got a mess brewing below decks(floor)

 

[Marinerbill210]

Jbcurt,
Thanks for the quick response. Thats wbat i thought he may have been referring too but was not sure if maybe he was referencing a technique of prepping or pouring the foam.
I think thats one of the the main things that led to the boat current conditions was being outside and untarpped. Refinished i plan on keeping under a canopy/carport along with cover if possible. Seems pretty straight forward then and alot easier then redoing the transom and restoring my 1952 plasticraft. Clean resto and basic boat care and maintenance sounds to be the right path.

 

[Marinerbill210]

Update on progress.
Decided to re foam only the center section for the moment as the two outter sections aren't nearly as bad. Only minor wetness on bottom 1/2" that is quickly drying out. I plan to redo outter foam if necessary over the winter.

The center section foam however was completely saturated and needed to be removed and im glad i started poking at it. A small 1 cu ft peice weighed 20-30 lbs.

Once all center section foam was removed front to back and the entire rear 3 feet i cleaned everything the best i could and allowed to dry for 3 days to allow any residual water to drain away.

I will be resusing the original deck wood for the time being and making new deck wood over the winter as well. I sanded down top surface of wood and coated with 2 coats of industrial expoy primer and will be getting expoy top coat also.

The foam i am going with is US Composites 2lb pourable marine foam.

Im adding sort of a "self bailing" / deck drainage system to try and eliminate the possibility of water getting under the deck surface and hence have it exit the before before hand. The tee in the back one side will run to a direct switched bilge and the other side will dump into the bilge are of boat, sort of a double backup bilge system.

The transom is planned to be removed next week and new one constructed of marine ply coated with epoxy resin and possibly reinforced with a peice of 1/8" aluminum sheet sandwhiched in between the two for added security.

This my seem like overkill but i plan on keeping the boat around for a while and would like to make it more than worthy.

Thanks for reading
-Bill

 

[Marinerbill210]

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