1984 Seaway Commercial Cuddy 20 Foot Outboard Motorboat, Seacast Transom Repair...

[a4haus]

After getting 99 percent of the wood out with a 1-1/4 17 inch ship auger bit, a 24 inch chainsaw, a 1-3/8 forstner bit (this is where I made the mistake, it was a 1-1/4 wide transom, this bit was too wide yikes), a custom tool for scraping made of 1-1/2 by 1/4 by 3 foot piece of grinder shaped steel stock from home depot, I taped rags to the steel bar and used mineral spirits to clean the inner sides of the transom. I also made a custom vacuum attachment that was long and vacuumed out the transom first.

 

[djm3801]

Neat job. I just did a 16ft McKee. 10 gallons. The pour is the easy part.

 

[kcassells]

Just asking....how are you making out with inspections on the rest of the stringers etc.

 

[MTboatguy]

Just asking....how are you making out with inspections on the rest of the stringers etc.

I agree, I am going to have to ask about that as well, that is a lot of money to invest if those stringer are not sound.

 

[a4haus]

Here are some updated pictures after finishing the Seacast pour. We had a glitch with the upper part of the pour. Instead of getting a fourth 5 gallon kit, I should have bought two 1 gallon kits. The transom only used 16 gallons, my calculations said 17.5. Initially I thought the transom was 1.5 inch, but it turned out to be 1.25 wide inside. Sorry for the typos in my other posts, I was sitting on the couch typing on my 50 inch TV.

Well we finished the pour, I wouldn't say pouring is too easy as we had some issues. See below for the problem we ran into. I had to get another gallon of Seacast to correct this mistake, and we only used 1 gallon out of a 5 gallon pail so we wasted lots of Seacast. Owell, we are beginners and beginners will make mistakes.

Here's what happens when you go too fast, or there was some glitch with the method we used in doing the upside down U cap per the Seacast instructions.

After fixing the air pockets, and getting some sanding done, here is my rough draft for the fiberglass job. I still need to sand the top corners, and the insides of the transom. I'm finishing the sanding on Sunday, and fiberglassing on Monday.

Drilling and sanding the hole for the drain tube was easy but figuring out how to flange it became impossible. The outside of the hole is flat, but the inside of the hole is against the bottom of the bilge and the flange tool won't fit. My Friend who is helping me said to just 5200 it in place and it will be fine. It think this is going to be my only option.

 

[sphelps]

Yea stuffing the glass in the top of the transom is a real pita .. I was worried about air pockets and ended up just taking it out and filling to the top ..
Wow 4 gals left over ! That would have been enough for a stringer ... Will you be installing the plug on the inside or the outside .. You could take a block of wood and have your bud hold it against the sleeve on the outside . then carefully tap around the edges on the inside with a ballpeen hammer . Once you get it started flaring it should work ok .. Use plenty of 5200 ..

 

[a4haus]

I just 5200'ed the drain plug in that stuff is insane. There was no need to flare both ends.

Conclusion, buy Seacast and be happy. I would rather get Seacast vs Nidabond and Arjay because I heard they don't hold a screw well and they cost about the same anyways. No clue how to avoid the bubbles I ran into, probably just need to be more careful doing the upside down U cap and not try to get it capped with one continuous piece.

Well I finished the project for the most part and I've been out on the boat twice now. What a gem this boat is. It was worth every penny and I learned so much. Now I can fix my own boat when I break it. I ended up buying a compressor from Lowes, a 20 gallon Kobalt unit that I like. It came in real handy grinding and spraying the gel coat. Having lbifiberglass.com 20 minutes away was nice. I also did a side job of replacing the gas tank. Here are the pics, sorry for being so slow to update the thread.

Fiber glassing was a big challenge, it took extra long to dry because I am very bad at mixing it right for the temperature. We used like 3 layers of 6oz cloth and 1 layer of .75 oz mat. I wanted to use 4 layers of 6oz cloth but my helper didn't think we needed it, My die grinder with a 3 inch built in extension from harbor freight and the compressor were a huge help in grinding down the glass around the tape line and grinding the curved parts. I was going to use my electric angle grinder but it was way to clumsy and caused some issues I had to fix with fairing compound.

This is my spray on gelcoat job. I actually ran out of gel coat during the 3rd layer right at the end. I messed up the first time spraying it and killed a Harbor Freight 15 dollar spray gun and wasted about a third of the gelcoat. Don't get the Harbor Freight gun, get the Homedepot husky gun. It comes with a bigger nozzle and a wrench so you can actually take it apart to clean it. I could write lots about doing the gelcoat, but I'll leave that for questions if anyone has any. I don't check this post much but I will be glad to help if I do see questions.

AHH yeah finally got that motor back on, what a pain in the neck lining it back up was Luckily I had some friends to help and I bought them an oyster dinner for helping.

 

[sphelps]

Congratulations ! Looks like she came out nice !