Help-O'Day 31-1984

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Tish Jepsen

I own an O'Day 31-1984, that I sail in the Thousand Islands. Recently, I discovered a leak in the strut. The bilge is filling daily. I'm wondering how to fix this problem without hauling the boat for the season. I have a manual bilge pump. The leak is under the diesel tank. HELP!!
 
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Justin - O'day Owner's Web

Caution

Tish, Without seeing your boat, I would be remiss to suggest a solution, but I do have lots of experience with trying to fix stuff on the fly and my advice to you is don't do it. The loss of the last of the season is nothing compared to the damage potential from a leak through the glass, let alone a flooding and sinking. At the very least, get a compitent glassworker on your boat to assess it. My guess is no one will do it without at least a quick haul - out, but someone may. Good luck with it. Justin - O'day Owners' Web
 
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Don Evans

Strut Leak

Tish, by strut, do you mean the cutlass bearing strut? If so, could be the backing plate bedding has finally failed. Of course ideally the boat should be pulled and this plate removed, cleaned and rebed if thats all there is to it. Can you reach this area at all without major removal of diesel tank? If you can reach that strut a liberal application of some underwater epoxy goop may stem or at least slow that leak. Can you quickly install an automatic bilge pump? A 12V bilge pump may keep on top of it. My fear is the batts will fail while your away, and the boat starts to sink. Can you watch the batts? After saying all this, if it was me, I'd pull the boat and call it a season and fix it right. Don
 
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David Hirtle

help-O'day31-1984

I own a 31' Oday, 1985 Model. I too have the same problem; a leak on or near the strut. At first I thought it was a leaky cockpit drain, mine only leaked when the engine ran and the boat "squated" forcing water up the hose. After replacing the old hose, and inspecting the thru-hulls, I too am convinced it is the strut. I called Rudy Nickerson @ D&R Marine (1-508-644-3001), (he was management @ O'day when they were in business, since bought all parts/molds). He states that he has heard of this and the only remedy is to move the fuel tank and rebed. I believe that it is an involved job as the fuel tank will have to be moved, somewhere! As you know, there is not much room to play with. I'm almost convinced that short of removing the engine to save the tank, to do the job correctly the tank will have to be sacrificed. If you hear of a better way, let me know!
 
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