nola mike
Vice Admiral
- Joined
- Apr 22, 2009
- Messages
- 5,522
So I swiss-cheesed my inner transom before I did my floor a few seasons ago, and it looked basically pretty good. I also removed a lot of stuff fastened to the outside, drilled out the holes, filled with epoxy and reattached. Last week came back from a ride, noticed speedo pitot loose. It pulled right out. I drilled out the holes with a forstner bit, but had a hard time telling what was coming out. The wood was dark, but didn't feel grossly wet and was at least gritty. I probed the holes with wire. The lowest hole was soft when I probed. The 2 upper holes were solid. I drilled again from the inside with a standard bit low and outside (as close to the pitot as I could get) and got a dark/light mix, and clear shavings. So...best guess now is that I have some localized rot at the very corner of the transom. What now? going to fill the outside with marine sealant for now, anything else I should do? The project before next season was to pull the engine and replace with a 4.3. Once the engine's out I'll be able to access the transom better from the inside. I was thinking of cutting out some windows, and if all looked OK at the bottom and around the cutout reglass (going to need to glass in some mounts anyways). The stringers also looked fine when I investigated them when I did the floor. I'll get a better look when I pull the motor as well. Ugh. Dreading finding stringer rot at the aft section as well as transom. Transom feels rock solid FWIW.
... usually if you find rot somewhere, it's easier to replace everything just to know you're not going to have to rip it all out again just to get to more rot. Can you imagine replacing the floor and everything on top of the deck only to find next year that that the stringers are mush?? Or the transom?