I would like to access the stern lockers and am wondering if it OK to remove the aft berth panel in a '99 catalina 29 mark II. Thanks. I have a persistent leak in the steering quadrant depression in the cockpit soul.
Aft berth panel removal?
- Thread starter Westcoastcat28
- Start date
I have a 1996 Catalina 28MKII. Removal of the panel is easy. Just take all the cushions out of the aft berth and crawl in there with your phillips screwdriver. Remove all the screws (8 or so?) and the panel is ready to remove. It's a fairly tight fit, so you'll have to sort of wiggle it out of there.
I've had my 28 for a couple seasons now, and when I got it, it had leaks everywhere. Windows, handrails, and so on. I got the little/easy leaks taken care of, and last summer I tackled the BIG leak...the steering quadrant.
Going in, I had no understanding of how the system worked, but I started with removing the panel just aft of the steering pedestal in the cockpit. That revealed the steering gear. Dirty in there, so I gave it a good scrubbing. What I discovered is that the steering gear sits in a fiberglass pan under the removable panel. At the rear of the pan, you should find a drain hole with a hose attached. The hose goes to a fitting at the stern. With this system, the water that gets past the access panel freely flows into the pan, and exits out the stern. Works great. UNLESS!!!!
Unless, like on my boat, there is a hole in the pan on it's forward end. Why would there be a hole there? Because at one time or another, someone was backing the boat (not you, of course), let go of the wheel, and pressure on the rudder caused the wheel to turn violently to either port or starboard. In the steering gear, there's a stop with rubber on it that hits the forward wall of the pan. Works just fine unless the force is too great (like in hands off backing) and the rubber covered stop punches right through the pan. Then, the pan drains into your aft berth instead of the lake/ocean. That's a wet spot we can do without.
The forward wall of the pan will be visible once you've removed the big interior panel aft of the berth. You'll be able to see pretty easily if there's a hole there. Mine had about a one in diameter hole, which I repaired with resin and fiberglass cloth. Once the hole was repaired, and I made certain the hose at the stern was firmly attached, and the system has been leak free.
While I was at it, I also removed the steering pedestal and re-bedded it with butyl tape. The boat was nearly 20 years old, and I don't want any water getting under the pedestal and going into the core of the cockpit sole (not "soul"
). The re-bedding of the pedestal project was considerably more trouble than the fixing the leak in the pan. You need to take the quadrant apart and screw around with the cable system, and get it all back in working order. All very do-able, but plenty of room for aggravation as cables slip off pulleys and get stuck and so on. Still, not a real difficult job compared to the many hellish jobs we encounter on our boats.
If you remove the deck cover just aft of the steering pedestal (and by the way, you should to clean in there), there is no reason to use any sealant when you re-install it. The system is such that whatever water flows in, just flows back out through the stern tube, so any sealant will just make it more difficult to remove the panel next time. That panel is held in by phillips head screws. I removed all the screws and filled in the screw holes in both the panel and the deck, figuring that each screw was just another invitation for water to get into the core. May have been overkill, but shy of a rollover (which I do so seldom), that panel has a good enough press fit that's it's not going anywhere.
Let us know what you find.
I've had my 28 for a couple seasons now, and when I got it, it had leaks everywhere. Windows, handrails, and so on. I got the little/easy leaks taken care of, and last summer I tackled the BIG leak...the steering quadrant.
Going in, I had no understanding of how the system worked, but I started with removing the panel just aft of the steering pedestal in the cockpit. That revealed the steering gear. Dirty in there, so I gave it a good scrubbing. What I discovered is that the steering gear sits in a fiberglass pan under the removable panel. At the rear of the pan, you should find a drain hole with a hose attached. The hose goes to a fitting at the stern. With this system, the water that gets past the access panel freely flows into the pan, and exits out the stern. Works great. UNLESS!!!!
Unless, like on my boat, there is a hole in the pan on it's forward end. Why would there be a hole there? Because at one time or another, someone was backing the boat (not you, of course), let go of the wheel, and pressure on the rudder caused the wheel to turn violently to either port or starboard. In the steering gear, there's a stop with rubber on it that hits the forward wall of the pan. Works just fine unless the force is too great (like in hands off backing) and the rubber covered stop punches right through the pan. Then, the pan drains into your aft berth instead of the lake/ocean. That's a wet spot we can do without.
The forward wall of the pan will be visible once you've removed the big interior panel aft of the berth. You'll be able to see pretty easily if there's a hole there. Mine had about a one in diameter hole, which I repaired with resin and fiberglass cloth. Once the hole was repaired, and I made certain the hose at the stern was firmly attached, and the system has been leak free.
While I was at it, I also removed the steering pedestal and re-bedded it with butyl tape. The boat was nearly 20 years old, and I don't want any water getting under the pedestal and going into the core of the cockpit sole (not "soul"
). The re-bedding of the pedestal project was considerably more trouble than the fixing the leak in the pan. You need to take the quadrant apart and screw around with the cable system, and get it all back in working order. All very do-able, but plenty of room for aggravation as cables slip off pulleys and get stuck and so on. Still, not a real difficult job compared to the many hellish jobs we encounter on our boats. If you remove the deck cover just aft of the steering pedestal (and by the way, you should to clean in there), there is no reason to use any sealant when you re-install it. The system is such that whatever water flows in, just flows back out through the stern tube, so any sealant will just make it more difficult to remove the panel next time. That panel is held in by phillips head screws. I removed all the screws and filled in the screw holes in both the panel and the deck, figuring that each screw was just another invitation for water to get into the core. May have been overkill, but shy of a rollover (which I do so seldom), that panel has a good enough press fit that's it's not going anywhere.
Let us know what you find.
WOW this is fabulous information! Thank you so much. Yes, I discovered the 1" hole under the steering quadrant/wheel and the crack along the bottom edge of the lower section of the pan. I did fiberglass over the big hole from the underside and topside and then when it still leaked I just poured the resin with catalyst in the lower basin, but below the level of the drain. But alas it still was leaking the rain water from the cockpit into the bilge and making a big smelly mess along the way! So now I am going to remove the aft panel and re-fiberglass the whole thing again. The other problem with the drainage system from the steering pan is that there is a low section in the hose heading to the T with the other cockpit drainage hoses and so the water gets trapped and stops the flow of water out of the pan. I cut the hose back about 6" and hooked it back up and now the water drains out of the pan easily. Also, the drain hole gets clogged easily with the junk that had accumulated along the quadrant and the pulleys. The previous owner's solution to the 'leak' was to seal the access panel in the sole (thanks) of the cockpit! Anyway just at it getting everything in there fixed up. The quadrant looks like it is fused to the top of the rudder post; any thoughts there? And when I took off the aft berth cover for the base of the pedestal I saw there were light water stains from the 4 bolts holding the pedestal on. Thanks!
How did you manage to fix the hole in the pan from underneath without removing the large panel in the aft berth? Ugh....you must have worked way too hard if you did it through the hatch in the cockpit.
Once you've repaired the hole at the front of the pan, and made sure the drain is working, that's the end of your pan leak issues. Pouring resin in the pan is not the optimal way to take care of leaks, but oh well.
With regard to the steering quadrant being "fused" to the rudder post....hmmmm. My Cat 28 has spent it's entire 20 year life in fresh water, and still, I was surprised at the amount of corrosion on the quadrant. I can only imagine that if you're dealing with saltwater, then you'd have more corrosion, and it may at least appear to be fused. Or hell, maybe it is fused at this point. My memory is only serving so much, and I no longer have the pictures I took while doing the job (dammit). Mine certainly wasn't fused in any way. Just bolted together. It was relatively straight forward to determine which bolts to remove to get the quadrant of the rudder post. Also, as I recall, the quadrant can be separated into a couple pieces. If you're interested in getting the quadrant off there, it will come off, but you may need to de-corrode things and may need some PB Blaster and some soaking time to get everything to come apart.
And, with regard to the water stains under the 4 big bolts that connect the pedestal to the deck, that sounds like evidence that water's traveling down the bolts. And into the aft cabin? And if it's traveling down the bolts is it getting into the cockpit sole core? Yick. Must be remedied.
I didn't have any staining at the bottom of my four bolts, but figured I never wanted to, either. Which is why I removed the pedestal and resealed it with butyl tape. There's only so much I can tell you about that process, other than there are no big surprises, and it certainly doesn't hurt to take good photographs so you put things together right. Obviously, remove the wheel. The stuff that has to be removed to free up the pedestal for removal is all pretty obvious. The four big bolts come out fairly easily. Their caps are held in place in their recesses in the pedestal base (on mine, anyway), so it's a matter of using a socket wrench with a nice long handle for leverage from down below. Then, you can turn and tap on the bolts from below to get them all the way out. Help would be nice, but I did mine solo. I didn't tap with anything more dense than wood, so as to not mess up the threads. I spent 20 minutes or so cleaning up the bolts with a wire brush once they were out, so they'd be nice and clean for a smooth assembly process. With the pedestal off, it was just a matter of getting the mating surface (pedestal to cockpit sole) nice and clean, and then re-installing it with the sealant of my choice. Which happened to be butyl tape. If you haven't used butyl tape yet, or haven't learned of it's virtues, I HIGHLY recommend you read everything MaineSail (forum member) has to say about it. Visit his website at marinehowto.com and find his article on it. And I mean HIGHLY recommend reading/studying it. Note that if you use butyl tape that you follow his recommendation of progressively tightening the bolts down over a period of time, rather than all at once to get the right results. Or, you could use something like 3M 4200. I wouldn't.
I did the remove/reseal/replace of my steering pedestal over a 2 day period of time. Maybe 12 hours total? Maybe took longer than it should have? For me, the frustrating part, after the pedestal was sealed and bolted down, was putting the quadrant back together and attached to the rudder post, getting the cable back on it and the sheaves located under the pedestal. At one point, the cable fell off a sheave and got jammed in between the side of the sheave and the arms that hold the axle for the sheave. And I mean jammed. I had to remove the pedestal AGAIN to free it up. And reseal it...I HATE re-doing stuff way more than simply doing stuff. I'm not sure why it gave me as much trouble as it did. Just one of those things.
But, the ending was very happy. The aft berth is dry dry dry, and now I have a clear understanding of how the whole system works.
Good luck, and keep us posted.
Once you've repaired the hole at the front of the pan, and made sure the drain is working, that's the end of your pan leak issues. Pouring resin in the pan is not the optimal way to take care of leaks, but oh well.
With regard to the steering quadrant being "fused" to the rudder post....hmmmm. My Cat 28 has spent it's entire 20 year life in fresh water, and still, I was surprised at the amount of corrosion on the quadrant. I can only imagine that if you're dealing with saltwater, then you'd have more corrosion, and it may at least appear to be fused. Or hell, maybe it is fused at this point. My memory is only serving so much, and I no longer have the pictures I took while doing the job (dammit). Mine certainly wasn't fused in any way. Just bolted together. It was relatively straight forward to determine which bolts to remove to get the quadrant of the rudder post. Also, as I recall, the quadrant can be separated into a couple pieces. If you're interested in getting the quadrant off there, it will come off, but you may need to de-corrode things and may need some PB Blaster and some soaking time to get everything to come apart.
And, with regard to the water stains under the 4 big bolts that connect the pedestal to the deck, that sounds like evidence that water's traveling down the bolts. And into the aft cabin? And if it's traveling down the bolts is it getting into the cockpit sole core? Yick. Must be remedied.
I didn't have any staining at the bottom of my four bolts, but figured I never wanted to, either. Which is why I removed the pedestal and resealed it with butyl tape. There's only so much I can tell you about that process, other than there are no big surprises, and it certainly doesn't hurt to take good photographs so you put things together right. Obviously, remove the wheel. The stuff that has to be removed to free up the pedestal for removal is all pretty obvious. The four big bolts come out fairly easily. Their caps are held in place in their recesses in the pedestal base (on mine, anyway), so it's a matter of using a socket wrench with a nice long handle for leverage from down below. Then, you can turn and tap on the bolts from below to get them all the way out. Help would be nice, but I did mine solo. I didn't tap with anything more dense than wood, so as to not mess up the threads. I spent 20 minutes or so cleaning up the bolts with a wire brush once they were out, so they'd be nice and clean for a smooth assembly process. With the pedestal off, it was just a matter of getting the mating surface (pedestal to cockpit sole) nice and clean, and then re-installing it with the sealant of my choice. Which happened to be butyl tape. If you haven't used butyl tape yet, or haven't learned of it's virtues, I HIGHLY recommend you read everything MaineSail (forum member) has to say about it. Visit his website at marinehowto.com and find his article on it. And I mean HIGHLY recommend reading/studying it. Note that if you use butyl tape that you follow his recommendation of progressively tightening the bolts down over a period of time, rather than all at once to get the right results. Or, you could use something like 3M 4200. I wouldn't.
I did the remove/reseal/replace of my steering pedestal over a 2 day period of time. Maybe 12 hours total? Maybe took longer than it should have? For me, the frustrating part, after the pedestal was sealed and bolted down, was putting the quadrant back together and attached to the rudder post, getting the cable back on it and the sheaves located under the pedestal. At one point, the cable fell off a sheave and got jammed in between the side of the sheave and the arms that hold the axle for the sheave. And I mean jammed. I had to remove the pedestal AGAIN to free it up. And reseal it...I HATE re-doing stuff way more than simply doing stuff. I'm not sure why it gave me as much trouble as it did. Just one of those things.
But, the ending was very happy. The aft berth is dry dry dry, and now I have a clear understanding of how the whole system works.
Good luck, and keep us posted.
wcc, great input from siamese. Golly, this should be recorded somewhere, like if you guys have a C28 website. Best writeup I've seen of those systems. For wcc, you may not yet be aware of www.edsonmarine.com, who made your pedestal and steering gear. In addition to siamese's fine descriptions, they have the manuals online with maintenance items, might help you out, too.