Re: Check out this transom!
I know this thread is old but I finally got the boat almost ready for the water again. I got the motor on it last summer and I had it out three times and lost the stator and a coil. I'm ready to get it out again - I hope.
The almost finished product...
In this picture you can see where I cut the cap of the transom off.
You can see the original inner skin on the bottom. Notice the half-oval shape near the bolts? How about the excess sealant around the bolts?
I've still got a bunch of work to do to get it prettied up, but I wanted to reply to let guys know some of the trouble I ran into.
The first batch of SeaCast I mixed up, I didn't add enough fibers and the mixture felt kind of pliable after it dried. It eventually hardened up nice. Another problem I ran into was the wooden mold I made to hold the inner skin in place. The board moved during the pour and you can see the outline in the last picture where the Seacast pushed out between the original skin at the top and the bottom. The good thing is that this area is about four inches thick now. The bad thing is that I had to purchase more Seacast.
The second batch of Seacast arrived and I added all the fibers to the solution - big mistake. The Seacast started to harden before I was ready to pour it and I had a hard time pouring it. I finally had to scoop it out of my bucket and "work" it into shape. Fortunately I only needed to add a couple inches to the top of the transom and to set the cap that I had cut off earlier in the process.
I was very concerned about putting this thing in the water for my first test run but it held up well. My dad held onto the transom and watched for flex during the testing and it all felt solid. I did have a leak around one of my mounting bolts so I had to re-apply sealant as you can see in the picture.
I found some movement of the transom cap after placing the motor and making the test run but I'm not sure if that was from the weight of the motor or from any flexing during running or trailering.
On a funny note, I had the motor mounted for about 5 minutes and I was pushing and pulling looking for any movement and my dad almost made me crap my pants when he jumped up on the cavitation plate with all of his 170lbs and started bouncing on it! The front of the trailer popped up in the air as the skeg touched the ground. It held up well of course and his comment was "might as well find out now if it's going to hold up instead of finding out on the water."