Damaged Tube, possible leak...

Hello all, I have a 2003 Bennington 20 foot pontoon. I bought it in 07 and have been loving it for 3 years now. Today, I noticed some damage to one of my pontoon tubes today when I pulled it out of the water. I have a bunk style trailer and every so often the wind or waves will push the back end of the boat over the bunk as we pull it out, leaving the back end sitting on top of the bunks instead of resting between them. When it happens, I just jump out of the truck and put a little body weight against it and she falls into place. When I did that today I happen to notice the tube looked different as it rested on the bunk, it looks a little bulged out when looking from the side. When I looked underneath I found this...





I can honestly say that I probably have never looked at the tubes from that angle before and I suppose that it could have been there before I bought the boat 3 years ago. I bought it from a guy who didn't have a trailer and he had a lift that two bunks going perpendicular to the tubes, one in the back and one in the front. So I never got a look under the tubes. I notice now that there are small dimples in the bottom of the tubes, about 4 feet from the front of the boat too, possibly from the lift??? I would imagine that if I did that damage today, I would have heard the tube getting bent out of shape, I didn't hear anything.

What are some steps to take to make sure the tubes are still sealed properly, no leaks or broken welds anywhere??? There are screw in plugs on the top of each baffle of each tube, 6 in total for both tubes. Here is a picture of the plug



Should this be fixed and pulled back out? Anyone have an approx cost that i'm looking at to get the pulled out and fixed? Are the tubes pressurized at all? Can I just pull the plug out at midday and see if the expanded air (due to extra heat at midday) comes out of the tube? and if it does, there isn't a leak...any ideas?

EDIT: I suppose I should mention that I think the boat pulls a bit to the left and always had...I have always assumed it was due to extra weight on one side of the pontoon due to the gas tank on that side...

Re: Damaged Tube, possible leak...

I would call the Ins. company and tell them that you hit something and let them take care of it.

Re: Damaged Tube, possible leak...

I work at Bennington and am actually the repair guy, I see this all the time, normally from a dealer moving the boat and they set it down a bit hard or get a block in the wrong place.

From looking at the pics I really don't think that will leak, it is pretty far from the end cap and the keel welds are pretty beefy and shouldn't crack from that.

I really don't know that it can be "fixxed", what I would do is cut the keel off to just in front of the dent and drill a bunch of holes in it and use a dent puller, this normally gets alot of it but the aluminum is really to thick to get all of it, the nuclear option is to cut off the end cap and bang it out but even that gets it just close.

For a shop to do either of those would be probably $400-$500 but I don't do billing so I can't say for sure.

I woudl honestly leave it alone, I doubt it affects much, maybe take some soapy water and spray the back and check for leaks, also you can move it on the trailer and stop suddenly the put your ear on the tube and listen for sloshing, if you don't hear water there probably isn't any.

Re: Damaged Tube, possible leak...

5150abf, thanks for the quick response. In your opinion, is this something that could have happened by pulling the boat out with it resting on the bunk??? In other words, would I have done this or is it more likely that the previous owner did it with his homemade lift and just lifted in the wrong place?

I will just put it back in the water and see what happens, I doubt she'll sink from getting some water in there. Then when I pull it back out, I'll do the slosh test.

If it really is just cosmetic and doesn't affect anything, I'm not going to worry about it right now. After I noticed the damage, I left the boat tied down to the trailer and backed her into the water, letting the tube get almost fully submerged and didn't notice any bubbles coming from the tube at all...

Re: Damaged Tube, possible leak...

My bet is that the dent was there when you bought it and was caused by the lift. It looks from the pictures as if the dent is cosmetic so I would do nothing unless you begin to detect a leak.

Re: Damaged Tube, possible leak...

Thanks for all the input...I will just put it in the water again and do a slosh test when I am done...if everything seems fine while she's in the water, and there's no sloshing...I won't worry about it anymore.

Re: Damaged Tube, possible leak...

Is there a way to pressurize the tube with a pressure gauge attached? Then see if the gauge drops?
WAIT maybe not. Just saw this thread.


http://forums.iboats.com/showthread.php?t=267327

Re: Damaged Tube, possible leak...

It could have been, people forget that the tubes are hollow, they are really strong when the load is spread out but won't take a big load in one spot.

Hard to say where it came from, wouldn't say a lift or your trailer could have done that, it had to be a pretty good bang, maybe came down on a rock while bouncing from a wake, some sort of impact to cause that.

I think you are fine and it is cosmetic but wait till the tube warms up and spray ti with soapy water and listen for water, if no bubbles or slosh forget you ever saw it.