Ladder screws pulled out!

[KazooTom]

I have a 1989 Sea Ray Br 180. I was swimming with friends off the back when my buddy who is 230#s tried to come up the ladder and it gave way. It appears these are a stainless bolt the goes into the decking. Please look at photos and tell me what I can do to repair.

Thanks in advance for you help.
Tom

 

[KazooTom]

Re: Ladder screws pulled out!

I have a 1989 Sea Ray Br 180. I was swimming with friends off the back when my buddy who is 230#s tried to come up the ladder and it gave way. It appears these are a stainless bolt the goes into the decking. Please look at photos and tell me what I can do to repair.

Thanks in advance for you help.
Tom

 

[KazooTom]

Re: Ladder screws pulled out!

I have a 1989 Sea Ray Br 180. I was swimming with friends off the back when my buddy who is 230#s tried to come up the ladder and it gave way. It appears these are a stainless bolt the goes into the decking. Please look at photos and tell me what I can do to repair.

Thanks in advance for you help.
Tom

View attachment 202071

 

[Gator1996]

Re: Ladder screws pulled out!

Just a suggestion but a second picture from father back may be in order so it possible to see the layout of the ladder area.

Seems as if whatever core material that the screws were put into (behind the outer fiberglass skin) has been compromised. I imagine the back of the area where the screws were installed is not accessible??? It looks like it would take a removal of the cap to access it.

If there is no access, seems like there are three options. I am not an expert so please use this as a thought starter not an instruction.

1. Cut a square of the fiberglass outer skin that is above that area where the screws are installed, inspect the backing material, is it bad, rotten etc.? If so replace it with a similar material, plywood, composite etc. Probably best to install a backer plate and through bolt if possible. Maybe use the t-nuts for this? Save the cut out square of course, it is relatively easy to glass the patch back in, apply gel and make the repair hard to see if you spend some time on it. You would only want to do this once.

2. Remove the cap? You might be able to remove the rubrail and only a portion of the fasteners in order to lift the cap enough to inspect. IF you could gain access that way you could save the trouble of cutting that section out as in #1.

3. Determine if you can move the ladder laterally? Remove the screws and ladder, fill old holes with thickened resin dish out and patch with glass and resin, slide the ladder over a couple of inches, maybe drill oversize holes and fill with thickened epoxy? Then reinstall.

Seems to me that this will eventually happen again until you can through bolt the ladder. So in my opinion, you would need to gain access to the backside. I hope that someone else can give some better/easier ideas.

 

[Woodonglass]

Re: Ladder screws pulled out!

Yep, you're gunna need access to the back to fix this.

 

[KazooTom]

Re: Ladder screws pulled out!



I hope this picture helps to see how the swim plate forms are attached. I don't want to sound stupid but was does removing the cap mean? If I take off the ladder what can I fill the holes with? Is there a white epoxy can I use?

 

[Gator1996]

Re: Ladder screws pulled out!

Hello Tom.
The new picture does help to see what you have. Removing the cap is really just separating the upper and lower half of the boat to gain access to the parts covered up by the top area. I don't think that removing the cap would be the way to go with the design of your platform though, way too much work for what you are trying to get to.

I still think that the first step is to determine what material the screws are driven into (what's in the platform). That is going to require drilling at minimum or most likely cutting to gain access to the inside of the platform. When you can inspect the core of the platform and determine if it is damaged/rotten or usable, you can make a better decision on how to move forward. Maybe someone will come along that knows your model and has seen what is inside the platform.

When you ask about removing the ladder, do you mean permanently? If you plan to just relocate the ladder, you risk having the same result somewhere down the road.

In either case, you can likely find white epoxy putty to fill with. You could also probably use thickened polyester resin to fill and then use a gel coat repair kit to hide the repair. I would imagine that you could also use 3M 5200 in the old holes to fill/seal also if you want a shortcut. I would take a long look at what comes out of those screw holes when I removed them and especially see if it is wet or soggy/soft. If so, you may be sealing that moisture in when you fill the holes.

I think that this type of repair is fairly common and if I were you I would take a look at the How To's section in the stickys. That will give you some insight on the way a boat is made, the materials used and the lingo used on this site. Then if you read one of the fiberglass restorations, you will get an idea of the process of repairing/filling holes I imagine there are many threads that discuss filling holes. Good luck. Let us know how you handle it.

All opinion, not an expert by any stretch of the imagination.

 

[Woodonglass]

Re: Ladder screws pulled out!

It's quite obvious that the backer material for the screws/bolts has somehow deteriorated and allowed the screws/bolts to dislodge. Gaining access to this area does appear to be problematic. Can you see any way to get access to the area from inside the boat? If not, and you want to fix this, you will prolly need to cut the top of the area, effect the repairs and then re-glass the cut-out area and re-gelcoat it. That's the only way I can see to do it. But hey, I'm just an...

 

[calvinator]

Re: Ladder screws pulled out!

I had a boat with a swim platform like that. If you remove the back seats, you should have access to that swimplatform cavity for inspection. It will be a tight squeeze, but you should be able to get a backerplate in there.

 

[Gator1996]

Re: Ladder screws pulled out!

And there you go, looks like you might be in luck. Let us know how it goes.

 

[KazooTom]

Re: Ladder screws pulled out!

Perfect. I will remove the seat on that side and take a look. If I can get in the area I was thinking of putting a aluminum plate on top and use stainless hardware to fix. I will keep you up to date on the repairs.
Thanks for the info. !!
Tom

 

[KazooTom]

Re: Ladder screws pulled out!

In answer to one of the questions is the hardware appears to be dry. I cant see any rot from the bottom. We will see once I look in side.

 

[GT1000000]

Re: Ladder screws pulled out!

My 2? worth...
That mounting design is very poor in my personal opinion...loading hardware in a manner that is pulling on it, is bound to rip itself out...
If, you can gain access to the interior of the ladder mounting brackets and re-support them from the inside with a backing plate, you may have solved the problem for a while, but you will still be depending on the fiberglass structure to support all the weight of a person, which may eventually cause a larger area of damage...
I would seriously look into just removing that style of ladder, seal the holes with your choice of Marine-Tex, Thickened Poly, Gel-coat, PC-11, or even just some 3M 5200...
Then get a new swim ladder that mounts to the top of the platform...similar to this
That way the load of a person climbing in and out is directed downward on to the top of the platform, reducing the chance of it getting pulled out...
Good luck and happy boating!
GT1M

 

[KazooTom]

Re: Ladder screws pulled out!

I did get access to the inside of the swim platform via behind the seat. (Thanks for the heads up). The fasteners failed not the wood. The orginal fastener was a round disk with teeth on it that is stuck in to the wood. The fastener only has 3 or 4 thread turns to hold. I am planning on adding a 1/4 mild steel plate with threads approx 1" wide around then the orginal plate size thats on the bottom. Space is very limited so I am adding a wire to the plate so I can slid it into place. The plate will be primed and painted before assemble. I will provide photos of the plate and the failed fastners as I do the job. Plate is being made right now.

 

[jbcurt00]

Re: Ladder screws pulled out!

If you could go bigger then 1" for the 1/4" plate, I definitely would. 1" spreads the load better then the previous method, but as GT mentioned, suspended from above all the load is on the fastener & it's point of attachment.

It was a T'nut that the ladder mount was thru bolted to:

And these are bolts that let loose:

I think I'd definitely go bigger on the plates, much bigger, HUGE even, & get all 4 mount bolts thru 1 large 1/4" thick plate on each side. Your 1" 'plates' are probably bigger around then the t-nuts but possibly not by that much. IMHO

Or at least get smaller friends :watermelon: Know any jockeys? :laugh:

 

[KazooTom]

Re: Ladder screws pulled out!

The picture on the right is actualy what failed. Yes the plates will be 1/4 thick and much larger then the area that the 4 holes goes thru to support the ladder.
Tom

 

[jbcurt00]

Re: Ladder screws pulled out!

I thought it read that you were using a 1" diameter 1/4" plate as a backer, sorry. But that ^^^ sounds like a good plan for a large backer plate.

 

[KazooTom]

Re: Ladder screws pulled out!

Here are the pictures I promised. The one picture is a sampling of the factory fasteners that failed. The second is the plates I made with .40 welding wire lightly tacked in place to provide the way to slid them in place and then break off the wires. Tomorrow night it should be fixed.
Tom

 

[KazooTom]

Re: Ladder screws pulled out!

Pictures:

 

[jbcurt00]

Re: Ladder screws pulled out!

Nice looking plate....