Hi Guys I have a 1975 wellcraft V20 Cudy. I have had it with the I/O and going to make it an outboard. I have just bought a 1989 175hp Yamaha for it and thois weights about 390 pounds, I also have a stainless Co. gillbracket http://www.stainlessmarine.com/single.html it is the 4th one in the middle of the page. Now I have already removed the inboard and all parts. I have fill the hole first buy removing any bad wood. I left the hole in the transom alone and went into the boat and cut the factory wood to be a square hole. Then I resined the ply. I then took and layed the cloth and reasin on to the ply and put it into the hole, with the fiberglass being about 3 inches larger then the ply so as it could over lap the factory ply. then I covered it with another layer of glass. Then I add a 2nd piece of 3/4 ply in the same manner as the first. Then I covered the whole thing with 3 layers of glass to build it to the factory leavel.<br /> Then on the out side I just keeped filling the outdrive hole with matting an reasin till I filled it out to the transom about 1/2 inch. Then covered it with marine-tex. Now I have to install the gill bracket. I have welded a piece of 3/8 steel flat stock the same size and hole formation as the gill bracket. this will be on the inside of the boat as a backing plate.<br /> Now as for the question. The area were the outdrive went thur the transom is two layers of ply thick and the rest of the transome is one layer thick. What should I do to build this out to the backing bracket? and is there any other renforcement that needs to be made to hold this thing all toghter?<br />Sorry for the long post but wanted to tell you everthing I did so far. Hope you could follow everthing I said. Just don't want to put this thing in the water and have the a#* end fall off. <br />Thanks