Re: got a leak and can't find it , help
shelby.....bud just get on a creeper and spend a half hour under the boat when its in your nice toasty warm garage!......any hull leaks will be pretty evident....
you might see some crazing.....but you will also see a water drip from the outside if is thru the hull.......(really unlikely).
Oops i've been a mechanic all my life and have spent at least 50% of that time on my back
wasn't the old saying ,mechanics and prostitutes both made their liveing on their backs
any way sorry to make a book out of this but no other way to realy tell the story.........................
i've had this boat off the trailer 4 times and spent hours on end going over every inch of the hull , to start off there was water driping from the area above the first roller on the keel ,this is a fairly heavy nose end boat and one roller was all that held up the entire frt half of the boat on the trailer ,this was the way it was set up before i got the boat and trailer
any way from the looks of the keel it apear'd that bounceing on the trailer durring transport had crush'd the fiber glass in the area makeing contact with the roller , upon seeing this i decide'd it was out side my ability to repair properly so i did some looking for a boat repair guy , got a couple to stop by and give an estimate 1st guy said i'l email you an estimate , to me that was strange all he had to do was 26" of keel grind down 1/2 to3/4 inch and build back , it's a very sharp keel. a few days go by and i get an email
his estimate was $1000.00 but he was quick to point out that include'd the glueing on of a USE'D keel guard
told him i'd let him know
2'd guy said he was on the way out , never show'd
now durring all this i had the front and mid boat floor out,, the 1st guy said the stringers were fine , but i wasn't sure,,these were very heavy glass wrape'd stringer 14inches tall but very hollow sounding if you hit them in the center of the glass about 7 or 8 inches off the floor ,,so while waiting for some one to show up i took an air saw and cut a 5" long slice off the top of the center stringer , and guess what there was nothing inside of it .
well there was but only a fraction of the oreg wood was left , what was left was a heavy fiberglass stringer hollow in the center
now the center stringer was aprox 90inches long and 14inches tall with two
cross stringers makeing a double "T" one at the gas tank end makeing a bulk head for the tank, and another 24 inches ahead of that ,
[/IMG] k try'd severaltimes all i get is the red dot and no pic ?(
ok now i had to do some thinking , it's too late to scrape the boat besides even with NO wood in the stringers the hull was solid as a rock , the hull (keel) did not move 1/16th of an inch while suporting 80% of the entire boats weight . any one knowing a Wellcraft air slot knows it has you might say 3 keels the curves and keels points make for a very solid hull , almost like out rigers , so the center keel is a very deep V and seting level the frt of the boat is lower then the rear so water will stay in the forward section rather then collect in the bilge area
what to do i didn't want to cut and distroy all the strength the stringers already had ,they are made from a very heavy matt , so i did some surfing and came across sea cast again , i had found it while researching for transum repair posibilitys , but didn't care for useing it as a transum but as a stringer filler thats a diff thing .
how to clean out the old wood, well trip to Lowe's and two pieces of metal 1/4 by 3/4" 3 ft long , took one and sharpen'd the end like a putty knife the other i sharp'd and bent into a hook , i had to grind both on the edges where they were slightly round.. but end'd up with a bar that fit perfictly inside the stringer a scraper and a shovel
, i'd have been in real trouble if the old stringer wood had not been so rotten but as it turn'd out my home made tools did a beautiful job of scooping the old wood out , placeing the big shop vac hose on the edge and draging the old wood up and out the shop vac suck'd it right up
, and useing a long piece of 3/4 copper pipe on the end of the vac hose made cleaning the very bottom of the stringer an easy task , washing it all down with acitone and i had a very clean mold for the sea cast
now Sea Cast is a lot like peanut brittle and don't hold screws very well so in my mind i want'd wood on top of the stringers for floor attatching ,so what i came up with was sea cast on the bottom and for the long stringer
a 6" piece of 3/4 pt the full length of the center stringer and 3" pieces for the side stringers , the 3/4 pt i had for over a yr so it was dry'd out very well , right way or not thats the way it was done , of course i glass'd over the top of the stringer after the wood and sea cast was install'd
and with the tools it was easy to push the sea cast completely in to
the empty stringers all the way to the ends and push out any air that was trap'd , it took a full 5 gal of sea cast to fill the stringers , but befor i could pour it i had to tie all the ends and corners togather , seems not one corner joint was tie'd into the others , so to hold form i had to use alum tape to make some thing to glass to , add'd 3 layers of resin and matt over the alum tape to make it all liquid holding
Oops you spoke of water driping from the bottom , this it did befor i start'd on the repair but only in one small spot right over the frt roller,
on the inside i found the water was comeing in an air bubble cause'd by a lift up of the inside base matt or what ever you call it,, i found 9 of these lift points in all and clean'd them out as well as i could with air pressure and acitone and shop vac . the pour'd each ful of resin , then brush'd each side of the stringers with a fresh coat of resin from center out to say 8 inches or so out past the matt edge any way
, this matt was a very heavy weight and i guess thats why it didn't lay very well, each bend cause'd a lift up, and the factory or man doing the job didn't cover it with a chop gun layer , found many factory screw ups but the boat is 28 yrs old and hasn't broke into yet
now geting to the area where the boat guy did a repair on the keel section
this was basicly the area where the two side stringers came off the main stringer and end'd aprox where the gas tank bullkhead start'd , on the insides i lay'd two layers of new matt from 6 inches up on the stringer to 11 inches out on the hull bottom well past the old matt , cover't that on the bottom corner with 1/2" layer of resin and chop'd glass and mill fiber .
keep in mind that all i was realy looking for was a slight water leak nothing structural , any way i did all the internal repairs while waiting on the guy to redo the 26 inches or so of keel , on hind sight i should have left the floor out and took the boat for a ride to check for any leakeage but i didn't
the whole problem start'd with an air gap in the layers of matt that made up the hull below the stringers the pounding the keel took from the roller durring transport cause'd the matt to crush, all the bad area was ground out and he replace'd it with a mixture of fine strands and mill'd glass , once i saw how he did that i look'd the rest of the keel forward over for any signs of stress cracks of damage cause'd from hiting docks being beach'd etc,, there were a couple places that had scraches so i ground them all out and fill'd them a thick mix of mill'd glass and resin
.
lay'd on my back and did a frt to back hull inspection 3 or 4 times with boat off the trailer and didn't find any reason for any water leakage , but it leaks now the same as it did the first time i had her out ,,nothing has made even a little diferance in the amount of water intake , 4-5 gal in a full day on the water ,,
i have even fill'd the boat with a mix of soapy water well above the area where it fills to , almost to the floor well above the water line and still NO leaks show up
i have even stay'd on the bank and watch'd my brother run the boat in from trim to slow down and the bow and lift eye stay well out of the water as it slows down , looks like i'm gona have to take the floor back up and take a long hard look for leaks , the drain back pipes are aprox 1 inch off the floor so it will never be completely dry unless i towel it dry but thats easy with floor up , but that'l have to wait till i have time and helpers to do it , weather right now sucks
