1981 Cajun Brat Transom

[Patrick Henry]

Hello all, new to the forum. I just purchased my first boat. You might as well say it was given to me. I brought it to a friend that does paint and body work which includes boats for some odd reason. The first thing he did was grab the motor and gave a couple of tugs. He said the transom is rotten. So much for having a boat ready to put in the water. But for what I've got in it so far, I could sell the motor and get my money back at least 3 fold. But I kind of like it to be honest. He hasn't done one but told me that a lot of guys are cutting the cap off, digging out all of the rotten wood and filling it up with epoxy. So I spent most of last night and most of today doing all the research that I could do on the matter which led me here. I've been over several threads here on the subject and countless numbers of videos on youboob. I just can't seem to decide which is the best way to go. I want the easiest and most economical procedure available. If I could get 5-10 years out of it I would be a happy camper. But I'm not opposed to going a more complicated route if it's more economical and will last longer than that as well. Please forgive me because I know this has been covered 8 ways to Sunday here. I'm just hoping that maybe someone has the same boat or one similar that has done it, how long it took, etc... I'm not able to upload the pics for some reason. It says I'm not authorized. But I've uploaded them to photobucket in case someone wants to view them

http://s1226.photobucket.com/user/uzzo2/library/Cajun Boat?sort=3&page=1

 

[2boatsinMI]

You can dig out the transom and fill it with seacast but thats neither the cheapest pr easist route. No sich animal as an " economical" retoration.

 

[Patrick Henry]

You can dig out the transom and fill it with seacast but thats neither the cheapest pr easist route. No sich animal as an " economical" retoration.

I seen a guy do one on youtube with coosa board and a lot of glass work. The boat he was working on didn't even have an inner skin. So he had to basically form it up and did it all with fiberglass. It was very impressive, but I bet it cost a fortune to do. If I could find a nice aluminum boat to put that motor on, I'd probably do that instead. But they aren't easy to find like that in this neck of the woods. Here's the link to the video of the aforementioned transom repair just in case anyone is interested and hasn't seen it. It's in 4 parts, but if you have autoplay enabled. It'll play the next one in the series automatically when the previous one is finished.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6PIxx2ujKg

 

[jbcurt00]

I suggest you migrate away from Photobucket. Make 1 more post and then you can upload pix directly to iboats.

PB discussion
http://forums.iboats.com/forum/othe...ssues/10429725-photobucket-outrageous-charges

Possible alternatives
http://forums.iboats.com/forum/othe...oaters-helping-iboaters-photobucket-anonymous

 

[Patrick Henry]

I suggest you migrate away from Photobucket. Make 1 more post and then you can upload pix directly to iboats.

PB discussion
http://forums.iboats.com/forum/othe...ssues/10429725-photobucket-outrageous-charges

Possible alternatives
http://forums.iboats.com/forum/othe...oaters-helping-iboaters-photobucket-anonymous

Thank you for the heads up my friend! I didn't know all of that was going on with PB because I rarely use it.

 

[Patrick Henry]

No Title

Alright guys and gals. Looks like I will be going in a different direction. My buddy that does the paint and body work called me one day last week and asked me to stop by because he had something for me. I get over there and he has a 1978 Custom Craft boat sitting in his shop with a 70 Merc on it. He wants the motor for his pontoon boat and is giving me the boat itself. Transom is hard as a rock but the floor was soft. He said he'd rather do a floor any day over a transom so off we go. I wish I had taken some before photos but i didn't think about it. So I spent all day saturday cutting the floor out of it. All the plywood was rotten and so was the stringer down the middle. It had several places where there was some type of foam. It was an open cell type foam so of course with all of the water it soaked it up like a sponge. I got it all tore out, just a little more cleanup and prep work to do before we start putting it back in. So we've got a pretty good idea of how we're going to put it back together. I need a little advice on the foam. I'm assuming that since I took some out of there, I therefore need to put some back. Does anyone know what I need to use and the best place to get it?