Re: old Zodiac: Fill with expanding foam? FIX-A-FLAT?
Well, I didnt do it to a Zodiac, but I did it to an elcheapo target inflatable 2 person boat.
We bought the things, hauled it 350 miles to the river, and the damn plastic valve cap was missing. So it couldnt hold air, and for a $20 boat, we werent going to drive an hour and a half to the nearest target. Thats when while looking through the shed looking for a PVC pipe cap that would fit, we found a bottle of the expanding foam, and I got the idea.
So we packed up and drove over to the home depot (passed target) and got ourselfs 10 cans of the great stuff expanding foam. we laid the boat out, and cut a small hole to stick the straw in and filled it up.
Then sat and watched waiting for the foam to expand. 3 days later it was still flat and sucked. So we left it in the floor of the garage and headed home. Came back 3 weeks later and the noose of the thing was pretty damn firm. it didnt fill up all the way like we wanted, but the bottom was pretty damn solid.
So the thing (weighing 70 pounds) we left tied up in the water. The family and the pontoon boat came back from an outing one day, and my friends mom wanted to get out of the boat, but not get her feet wet, so she had the idea to stand on the thing. she stood on it and though to herself "why isnt this 8' boat with me standing on it folding in half? what the hell?! "
It work and was awesome, but it needed more foam, and we needed to figure out why the foam took 3 weeks to expand.
The thing got loose and floated away one night, its someone else's problem now