Water Leaking from transom

[Crown_Regal]

I just want to first say hi to everyone on iboats as this is my first post. I start out with a very typical story...I just bought a 1998 Regal 1700 LSR, my first boat. I bought a fish finder and before I was going to drill any holes to mount the transducer I came to this site to read the does and dont's. I liked the idea of putting a piece of starboard on the transom to minimize the holes I'd be drilling(red grease pencil outline). I also liked having the option of moving the transducer around; especially since I?ve never done it before and probably wouldn?t get it just right the first shot. When I removed the speedo pick up tube to mount my starboard some water came out...maybe a quart. I then knew I might have some rot...I continued to drill the two holes for the starboard. The hole farthest to the left had no water or signs of moisture but when I drilled through the right hole I got a stream that lasted about 2-3mins. Its a 1/8" hole.

So my question is about how these boats are constructed because I didn?t see any wood particles come out and my drill bit was taped to only go in about 3/4" to 1" and it went all the way through. I am unable to see the hole because it is boxed when looking in from the engine compartment.

Some additional info...I haven?t had to run my bilge bump since I've owned the boat and I've had all day trips. I did however leave the boat outside covered but it turns out my covers are not water proof.

Could this be rain water that was trapped when it got rained on or am I going to have to tell my wife some really bad news? Where would you suggest I go from here? Thanks in advance!!

 

[jbcurt00]

Re: Water Leaking from transom

Without further investigation & photos, I wouldn't totally rule out getting lucky, but it is kind of unlikely. You probably need to spend some quality time researching '98 Regal 1700's, and poking around the restoration areas of the forums for some ways to fully explore & prod the interior sides of the hull & transom to find where this water has been & how far into the interior of the bilge area the water has penetrated.

See if you can remove some hatch covers & probe around in the interior as best you can. There are lots of 'sealed' areas in an engine bay & or below deck that would seem water tight that aren't. In fact once water is in, the construction of many boats inhibit the water's ability to escape or find it's way to the bilge & bilge pump.

Don S has a sticky at the top of the resto forum home page, oops hull extension thread & friscoboater's SeaRay resto thread are listed there & are invaluable resources. Frisoboater has also started a YouTube video library that is very helpful as well.

You can't post too many pix. Look along the transom & keel for any stress cracks, discolored or damaged areas in the gelcoat & post pix.

Open a photobucket account & post the pix using the img tag code. Then the pix you post will look like this:

In photobucket these choices are under each saved pix:

Email & IM

Direct link

HTML code

IMG code <<<--- Click in this box next to this in your acct under the pix you want to post, it may auto copy the text or you may have to use the copy/paste function that opens when you right click the mouse on the text.

This will make the pix larger so better details & it allows the pix to be viewed while reading your associated text, instead of switching back & forth between the attachments.


Welcome to dry dock & best of luck w/ your project

 

[Crown_Regal]

Re: Water Leaking from transom

PMjbcurt00,

Thanks for the advice. I'll take some more pictures tomorrow and open it up as much as I can. Maybe I can see aft far enough if I stick my head in the center ski storage area to get a better look. I see more forum searching and reading in my future.

 

[jbcurt00]

Re: Water Leaking from transom

If you have a cmera or a cellphone that will also shoot video, you might reach back as fair as you can in the engine bay & all around the interior side of the transom bracket for the outdrive, I/O right? Not an OB? But yes the ski locker is a great place to look around.

Best of luck, the good news is there are a bunch of frequent posters & helpful folks in & around Jacksonville, FL.

It's fixable, whatever you find. But may take some work, time & cash:redface: a fair amount of each.....

 

[glenn property of pam]

Re: Water Leaking from transom

wondering if you drilled through the transom at that point and into one of the gaps between the stringers that should be full of foam and dry. i would go with jb and find out as much as you can about your boat model in the hope you can see thats been stripped out thus giving you a idea of whats inside. this could be a area thats been damadged and allowed to flood. if its not making it to the biege then i would look all around that section from front to back to make sure theres no cracks or rock chips where water could have got into that section. 1/8 over 2-3 mins good stream would be a lot of water if its in the transom (most transoms would only hold 10-15 gallons if there was no material in them at all and that hole is fairly high on the back of the boat). if u bend a coat hanger and can push it in and go around with it and not fell anything with in a few inches then its not looking good. the main thing is dont panic and rush into anything the easy fix is the one with a plan.

 

[Yacht Dr.]

Re: Water Leaking from transom

I just want to first say hi to everyone on iboats as this is my first post.
Could this be rain water that was trapped when it got rained on or am I going to have to tell my wife some really bad news? Where would you suggest I go from here? Thanks in advance!!

View attachment 153131

Welcome to Iboats CR ..

Man.. you need to find out where that **** stream came from..

If you say that you did not drill through the transom.. then its kinda not a good sign.

No amount of water should Pour like that in the transkin.

You might be able to backflush it with acetone and resin..

I just dont know at this point until you have more info to give us.

You really need to sound hammer this trans and inspect via core samples if you think your trans is failing..

Just too hard to tell right now .. sorry..

YD.

 

[hanesj75]

Re: Water Leaking from transom

A guy in Austin Texas with the same model boat (Regal 1700) had the EXACT same problem several years ago, and posted on here about it (but issue was not resolved at that time):

http://forums.iboats.com/showthread.php?t=275449

I just bought this same model boat myself up here in Indianapolis two weeks ago and now I'm worried to death I'm carrying water around in voids in the hull that I don't know about, as they rot my boat out from the inside. I don't really want to drill into the transom to find out.

I PM'd that guy to find out whatever happened - I'll let you know if he replies.

-John

 

[Crown_Regal]

Re: Water Leaking from transom

Thanks for all the fast replies.

Today I hooked up the shop vac and put it on all the holes and didnt get anymore water out of any of the holes. I then took a piece of .042 wire and poked it in the far right hole where the majority of water was coming from. I couldnt feel anything and it felt like it was empty and came out clean...no wood, foam, etc. I took that same piece of wire and put it in the hole (bottom right) where the factory speedo was attached and it wasnt drilled all the way through the transom. I poked it around for a while but everything seemed intact.

I read through the other post and we have alot of things in common. The biggest factor I noticed was both of the boats got rainned on.

I'm leaning towards rain water was trapped in a compartment and the sealant of the speedo had gone bad on the other hole that dripped some water. At the end of the other post someone suggest drilling a hole in the floor above it and adding an access hole. I think I might go this route and see if a weep hole can be drilled for water to drain into the bilge. It should give me a better idea of how bad things are.

 

[Crown_Regal]

Re: Water Leaking from transom

Photo update: Right side of pic is the transom and the top of the pic is where I drilled into and all the water came from and have no access.

 

[jbcurt00]

Re: Water Leaking from transom

Based on the other Regal thread someone posted above, for lack of a better term, I'd bet that's a hollow box beam along the chine for structural rigidity, and may or may not contain wood or ply. It'd be nice to see how the other iBoat thread was finally resolved.

If the transom or stringers are wood, water in that sealed compartment sure could lead to some big problems.

You & HanesJ75 should spend some quality time on the phone looking into the abyss together to come up with a plan to determine the extent of the problem & some possible solutions.

 

[sphelps]

Re: Water Leaking from transom

Hey CR , that sure is strange how they would build a hull to trap water like that.
Hopefully you'll get it worked out soon.
What side of J-ville are you ? I'm over on the northside. I.m no expert on this stuff but if ya need an extra hand just give me a holler !
S.P.

 

[hanesj75]

Re: Water Leaking from transom

Well, that guy in Austin never got back to me.

Have you figured anything else out about your mysterious leak?