Transom Leak

I have a '93 Four Winns 210 Horizon, 351W V8 Ford Rem (put in 2001). After storing in my driveway as usual, I've got a transom leak when I put it in this weekend. For the first time since owning it, I had accumulated rainwater in the bilge for several months (forgot to take out the plug-my bad). People have told me the early 1990's FW's have transom problems because of the design and wood used. Was quoted thousands to replace and rebuild the transom. Any alternatives to fixing and identifying the problem without rebuilding the whole thing? Thanks.

By the way, out of curiosity, did the water cause the problem or is it just age?

Re: Transom Leak

If the leak is due to the transom rotting (which may or may not be the case, we can't tell without some pics and an examination of it on your part) then there's nothing to do but replace it.

If it's something else there's ways to track down the leak and fix it.

Is your transom rotten? If so, there's water and age both involved

Re: Transom Leak

Do you know exactly where the water is coming in? Are you positive it's the transom and not a bellow?

Re: Transom Leak

Any suggestions to find the leaking spot?

Re: Transom Leak

You have to LOOK, read this thread.

http://forums.iboats.com/showthread.php?t=269307

Re: Transom Leak

Stick the boat in the water at a place where you can sit and look at it.. a place where it is nice and quiet.. then climb in there with a flashlight, mirror, maybe a camera so that you can take a digital photo of places you can't see way down there.. and just look for where it's coming in..

I'd guess that most leaks are from the bellows... what makes you think that your transom is rotted?

Re: Transom Leak

Thanks for the suggestion. As for the rot, I was told by a marine repair shop that Four Winns of that era are very prone to wood rot because of poor quality of wood and design problems. They have not actually looked at it. I think the sitting water had something to do with it as well.

Re: Transom Leak

Take a look - this was my experience in finding my leak. You have to put assumptions aside for a while and just research. Rotten transom is worst case scenario, and it can skew your research and make your stomach turn. Not worth it until you confirm it! Mine ended up being a gimbal housing seal. Rare issue, but I had plenty of people telling me "rotten transom".

http://forums.iboats.com/showthread.php?t=265327&highlight=bilge+suggestions

Re: Transom Leak

Hadden -- did you find out where the leak was coming from? Just curious..

Re: Transom Leak

hadden5 said:

Thanks for the suggestion. As for the rot, I was told by a marine repair shop that Four Winns of that era are very prone to wood rot because of poor quality of wood and design problems. They have not actually looked at it. I think the sitting water had something to do with it as well.

Click to expand...

Wood quality has little to do with rot.

How well it's sealed and stays encapsulated, has EVERYTHING to do with rot.

When I replaced my wunderful King Kobra with the 454 Bravo in my 87 Liberator, , I found that Four Winns did a terrible job of sealing and encapsulating the wood in the transom area with the fiberglass and resin. The transom drain and drive cut out was not sealed at all allowing water to penetrate everywhere in the transom. When I removed screws holding the speedo-pitot on the outside, water ran out of the screw holes.

There was a substantial gap between the bottom of the transom (wood) and the fiberglass on the bottom.

It took me several months to adequately dry out everything before I could reseal and re-fiberglass everything to my satisfaction. I pumped a lot of marine epoxy mixed with milled glass into the area below the transom after it all dried out.

I was lucky. there was NO rot in this 87 boat. It didn't sit in the water for any length of time during it's life...

Your leak could be anywhere and easily fixable, to a transom seal leak that would require removing the engine and gimbal. You just have to find it.

I don't want to scare you, but if you have a rotten transom, it may not be worth repairing.

This is really not for this particular forum and it's probably premature since you don't know where the leak actually is.....but

Here's some discussion on repairing rotten transoms.
http://continuouswave.com/ubb/Forum3/HTML/005802.html
http://en.allexperts.com/q/Boat-Repair-2123/Transom-Repair.htm
http://www.rontanis.com/transom.htm
http://transomrepair.com/zk/fullrepair.shtml

There's a LOT of rotten transom repair info out there...google "rotten transom repair" and hope that's not the problem......


Cheers,


Rick