Re: 1983 Deck Boat Transom/deck/stringer replacement Help
Hey Decker just checking in on ya ! You doing ok . Any updates ?
Thanks Sphelps, I doing good but I mess around a few weeks back and sprang my angle real bad. Had to slow down some. Its getting better.
ok i just got an 1981 Lo Decker Deck boat,looks just like yours mostly, i noticed deck boat made some changes to the railing and mine has an I/O OMC .
OK so here my question, i did not see you adding any drain holes between bulk heads or from the outer stringers to the center bilge area, did i miss this or is there a different plan?
Just wandering as i will begin the rebuild on mine this fall.
View attachment 154233
the tall thing in the back is the motor cover open
Hey BigLee,
Always nice to see another Deck Boat here. Glad you stopped in.
To answer the question. I did not drill any holes between the bulk heads or the stringers. I did leave between the 2 inside stringers completely open from bow to stearn. If you look at some of the pics in the begaining of the post you will see how the factory did the foam. I plan on doing about the same. I am planing on putting some under the deck storage that the factory didn't do. Any of those boxes will have a drain pipe runing to the center of the hull. In all of the other places I plan to use pour in foam and cover it with the pink board to seal in the foam.
I have read and read and listened to all the pro's and con's of the foam and all the different ideals on how to make drains in the foam.
This is just my personal thoughts and do not wish to start a foam war in the thread.
The foam of today is better than it was back in 1983. When I started to tear down my boat, all the foam that had water in it came from the bad deck. The stringers were in very good shape and did not have any water damage. I could have left them in place. But I didn't by my own choice. Back to the foam. When you pour in the foam it makes a seal against anything it comes in contact with. The closed cells of the foam will seal its self from leaks as long as it is not punchured. Now if I do get some water in the foam and the closed cell allow the water in, I don't think it will drain down to the limber holes and alow it to drain out of the bilge. The foam has made a seal between the hull and the stringers and the bulk heads. How is this water going to travel thru all the foam and if it does then is your foam doing its job. Its supposed to make the boat float if it goes under.
I understand there are millions of boats with bad transom and wet foam and bad stringers. This just makes my point that foam will not let the water out. Once it is wet it can only be removed it will not dry. So why go to all the different ways to try to make it drain. I would much rather try and make the boat more water proof and protect the boat from the outside elements.
Mine would not have been this bad if I had done a better job of keeping it covered and stored better.
Please don't take any of this in the wrong way. I am planing on doing some better ways of foaming than the factory did and in a totally different way. But that's down the road. My main objective is to seal any type of holes in the deck as well as can be and prevent any type of screws to penetrate the foam. I have a lot of planing to do still. (lol)
Ok guys you can now let me hear about it.
Bye the way BigLee, Nice looking boat you have there.
