1964? Crownline floor replacement

[roscottjr]

I have what I believe to be a 1964 model Crownline boat that I am in the process of replaceing the floor. I have run into a questionable situation. After I got the old rotted floor out and began to inspect the joists I noticed there is no wood inside the fiberglass. When I say no wood, I mean there is no signs of any wooden stringers being inside the fiberglass at all. It looks like from the factory they prefabed fiberglass joists which are the correct size to fit over 2x material and then glassed them into the boat but didnt put any wood in them. It seems very sturdy and it would be a pain to custom cut a 2x to fit since it would kinda resemble a rocking chair leg from one end to the other but I cannot find any signs whatsoever of any wood ever being there. The original floor was glued onto these fiberglass joists. Do I need to cut the top off of these and put in some wood or was this normal for this particular boat? The way the boat is designed, I dont see any way for it to flex any if at all and dont think the wood would add any strength. I am ready to put the plywood back in right now but I am waiting on some other opinions about this. I have talked to several other local people and a couple marine repair shops and they have all said that it is a strong possibilty that it never had any wood in it to begin with. I would think that even for this old of a boat that there would be some sign of wood if it had been there in the first place. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Robert

 

[sdunt]

Re: 1964? Crownline floor replacement

always possbile that those were made with out wood. Are you concerned about attaching the floor to these fiberglass stringers that there isn't that much to screw into? You're basically going to cement the new floor to the stringers anyway, so If they are structuraly solid, I would leave them alone.

you can use polyester filler / putty on top of the stringers, you can put matting soaked in resin on the stringers. you can use epoxy putty or thick resin, epoxy is a better adhesive than polyester resins.

In my case I used Polyurethane construction adhesive because of my experience with it and it has some flex and give to it that Epoxy or Polyester resin don't have.

The main thing structurally is that you attach the floor to the hull at the sides. Your joints won't be prefect, so you have to fill them. Then install a couple of layers of cloth tape between the hull and the floor before you glass over the floor itself. You should also run the glass from the floor up a ways onto the hull. quite often the boat was designed such that the floor is an intregral part of the boats structure and you need to rebuild that structure.

Good Luck

 

[roscottjr]

Re: 1964? Crownline floor replacement

That sounds exactly like what I was planning. Thanks for the input.

Robert

 

[Seaking86]

Re: 1964? Crownline floor replacement

Do you have pics of this boat?

 

[billz260]

Re: 1964? Crownline floor replacement

I'm looking for pics of old Crownline's as well. Would be much appreciated.

Thanks.