pontoon construction ( inside)

Have never worked on a pontoon boat before. Neighbor woman has a SWEETWATER about 20 ft. she says has water in the pontoons. My question is what is inside those things? Is there any flotation foam injected in them. Are there seperate compartments, each one water tight or is it it one big tube?
Looked at it today, is on a trailer, could not find any drain plugs. Along the top are 3 spaced 1/2 in. pipe plugs, under the deck, hard to get to. Would they be for seperate compartments ? My plan is to take a hole saw and cut a hole way above the water line. Stick a hose in there and fill it with water. Once I find the leak, I can pump the water out. Am I thinking correctly? Would a 2 in. hole degrade the integrity of the pontoon, like denting a can?
Is a salt water boat, normally left in the water year round. regards FRED

Re: pontoon construction ( inside)

Fred dont cut your pontoons. The pipe plugs are for seperate compartments as some pontoons like mine and aparently yours have. this is so if one compartment gets a bad leak you wont sink.When I got my pontoon I had the same problem. I found out that most of the water was inside the front two compartments because when you hit waves they run up over your plugs in the top and water gets in them because each of those pipe plugs has a smell hole in them to allow the air inside the pontoon to expand when you take it out of the cool water and the sun heats it up. All I did was remove the plugs and cyphoned out the water with a 1/4 inch peice of hose with a fishing sinker tied to the end. Trus me use the sinker I tried and tried to cyphon the water out without it and the hose just floats and dosnt get much water out. Now the down side, when you take the plugs out they will most likeley break on you and it can be a pain in the rear to get them out but its a lot better than cutting a hole in your pontoon and they shold be replaced anyway. If you want you could fill them first to find the leak but Im betting on the plugs being the problem. In fact I beleive most 20 ft pontoons have four plugs in each side so you might start with looking for the hole without a plug in it, that might also be where the water is coming from. Also for a little more info for ya, I dont know of any maufacturers making pontoons with flotation foam in them but they do make the foam and some people do put it in there. If yours has it you wont hear any water sloshing around in the pontoons. Good way to check is if its on a trailor just roll it forward and hit the brakes and have someone standing by the boat and listen for the water to slosh. Also another good way to check for leaks is to remov the plugs and hook up an air pump. If it dosnt hold preasure you can just spray the outside of the pontoon with some soapy water and find the leak like you would on a tire. I dont know what the apropriate preasur is but I did see a story about to much air and the pontoon blowing up. I think its always at the top of the page in the pontoon section if you want to check that out. I know its alot of information so I hope it helps.

Re: pontoon construction ( inside)

JOEBOB, I am sure happy I asked. Think you saved me a lot of time and heartaches. Makes sense the plug would be vented. She showed me the tube she used for a siphon, it would curl and float just like you said. She hears the sloshing when someone picks up the front of the trailer. Since there are compartments, stands to reason you would hear it in the front. Thanks, is getting to hot, 90 each day, for me to get too envolved. regards FRED

Re: pontoon construction ( inside)

+1 with joebob. PUT THE DRILL DOWN. You have a couple of choices. Most tunes have separate compartments and it appears that your does. It does not have foam. U shaped toons with flat tops have foam. Some toons are not completely sealed between compartments. there may be a small hole in each divider to allow all the water to drain slowly to the rear if the bow is lifted. (my '88 model was like that). Some toons have a drain plug at the rear. If not, one could be put in at the top of the rear where a pump could be used to extract the water and then re-sealed. I used a small pump with a 1/2 inch copper pipe on the end of the hose. This will only work if all the water can drain to the rear. The other way is to remove the small vent plugs and, attach a soft bendable copper tube, which can be bent and flexed to reach the bottom, to a small pump. To find the leak, do not pump in any more than 5 lbs.

Re: pontoon construction ( inside)

Ray,
Im a new pontoon owner in the middle of my first rebuild. noticed someone had welded a drain plug on the bottom of one of my toons. Im guessing they did this after repairing a leak in order to make it easier to drain water if another leak occured, or they drilled a hole to drain it in the first place and installed plug. My question is, would it be wise for joebob to drill hole in bottom of the toon to drain, with the intention of welding a drain plug on bottom for future use, or is this a big no no? I use a scissor trailor so plug on bottom is not in the way, may be different story for bunk trailor.

Re: pontoon construction ( inside)

Sure a happy you guys gave me a heads up. One pontoon section plug was open that the woman managed to get a 5/16 th. hose into. Spent a good bit of time trying to straighten out the hose and attaching a line to the end with a bunch of those split sinkers. Only thing that would go thru the hole. In the mean time, went down with a pipe wrench determined to get the other plugs out.
First one snapped off. Thought I was in for one heck of a job removing the rest of the fitting but I retrieved the pieces, found out they are plastic. Instead of wrestling with an easy out, all I have to do is melt the rest of the fitting and chase the threads with a pipe thread tap.
BTW, I think it is approprate to respond to post. To often I have racked my brain and went to the books on the YAMAHA site, never finding out if the problem was solved. Became a bit disalusioned. Think that is one of the reasons RODBOLT left. regards FRED

Re: pontoon construction ( inside)

Todd28 said:

Ray,
Im a new pontoon owner in the middle of my first rebuild. noticed someone had welded a drain plug on the bottom of one of my toons. Im guessing they did this after repairing a leak in order to make it easier to drain water if another leak occured, or they drilled a hole to drain it in the first place and installed plug. My question is, would it be wise for joebob to drill hole in bottom of the toon to drain, with the intention of welding a drain plug on bottom for future use, or is this a big no no? I use a scissor trailor so plug on bottom is not in the way, may be different story for bunk trailor.

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Some models have a drain on the bottom. This is OK and facilitates draining, but I consider it a possible leak source especially if it's done outside the factory. I'm just more comfortable with it on the top.

Re: pontoon construction ( inside)

pine island fred said:

Sure a happy you guys gave me a heads up. One pontoon section plug was open that the woman managed to get a 5/16 th. hose into. Spent a good bit of time trying to straighten out the hose and attaching a line to the end with a bunch of those split sinkers. Only thing that would go thru the hole. In the mean time, went down with a pipe wrench determined to get the other plugs out.
First one snapped off. Thought I was in for one heck of a job removing the rest of the fitting but I retrieved the pieces, found out they are plastic. Instead of wrestling with an easy out, all I have to do is melt the rest of the fitting and chase the threads with a pipe thread tap.
BTW, I think it is approprate to respond to post. To often I have racked my brain and went to the books on the YAMAHA site, never finding out if the problem was solved. Became a bit disalusioned. Think that is one of the reasons RODBOLT left. regards FRED

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Fred, be sure to replace the vent plugs when your finished with your water issue. They do serve a purpose. Good luck.

Re: pontoon construction ( inside)

Jeep Man reminds me when I went to find olugs for some reason they qanted like 10 bucks a plug and mine has 8 plugs so I went to home depot and got some 3/4 inch pvc plus to put in there and used the smallest drill bit I had to make a hole in the top of the plug to make it a vent plug.