Transoms

[adangelo77]

Hi

Anyone know how long a transom lasts, I have two boats a princecraft that has a wood transom with aluminum covering it and a fiberglass boat, both boats are quite old, circa mid 80s and transoms seem perfectly fine.

 

[roscoe]

Many many years if the wood is kept dry.

Not long at all if the would gets saturated, even in a few small areas.

 

[Texasmark]

Ditto. Water intrusion could come from obvious ways....rain with boat sitting out and uncovered.....not pulling the drain plug in that condition....bow high on the trailer in that condition. Also things like thru transom drain plugs for transom splash wells, engine mounting bolts not sealed, transom bracket (alum) support bracket mounting bolts, any external screws not sealed, drain holes for the boat or inlet-outlets for built in live wells are ways water gets in.

A good going over is a good idea anyway. Any gel coat cracking is a sigh that something is moving that shouldn't be. To check a transom's integrity, I set the engine vertical and get on the AV plate and move up and down in a jumping fashion while watching the top of the transom. If I see any movement I investigate.

 

[gm280]

Water is the source of all living things. BUT it is also the world's worst liquid for rotting/corroding most everything! Rust and rot follow water around all the time and won't ask you if it can come aboard. So YOU have to seal every little possible intrusion point on any fiberglass/wood sandwich on anything. Transoms are the worst for rot, stringers and bulkheads are next followed closely by floors! So the better you build and seal your transom (or any wood sandwich), the longer it lasts...

 

[mike_i]

While we're on the subject of transom rotting, I have a question. If the water intrusion/wood rot is limited to a small area on the transom besides total replacement what else can be done? Somewhere I thought I either read an article or saw a you tube video of someone drilling several holes in the transom and injecting some type of glue or epoxy or some kind of magic stuff. Anybody know anything about this?

 

[Texasmark]

No on the injection thing but isolated rot holes aren't that big of a problem. Back to what I said earlier.

 

[jbcurt00]

Rehab of a rotted transom, partially or totally, isnt in the scope of the OPs originally posted question.

​​​​​To the original question:

Anyone know how long a transom lasts........

I have two boats that are both quite old, circa mid 80s and transoms seem perfectly fine.

1980s arent yet pretty old, IMO, but how did you check transoms to confirm they're good to go?

Aluminum vs fiberglass typically the transoms are not the same.