Hunter 34 Sea Hood reinstall

[Ilanortho]

Hi;
After all the suggestions and 3 days of work my wife and I got the sea hood off. I believe was bonded with 3M 5200 as had to fight and chisel all the way, inch by inch. In some places it actually pulled outer layer of FG off the deck. Is now repaired and looks like new. There is no way I will re-bond it as I intend to pull it off every few years to clean etc.
All 60 screw holes have been filled in as many of them had been leaking and there is no way I will put them back in. Sea hood has been refinished and a thing of beauty.

How do I reattach this? Thru-bolting to the cabin roof will eventually leak into the cabin. Someone once mentioned four bolts, but can't find further reference. Thinking of bonding metal plates to outer cabin roof and then drilling and tapping into these to bolt it down.

Why couldn't they have just designed a smooth cabin roof without hood?

Thanks. Ilan

 

[PGIJon]

While there are many more with far more experience than I that will certainly answer you, I was wondering if you could share some picture of the job?
Thanks
Jon

 

[Ilanortho]

Hope this helps; key tool is the one where my wife is holding the long steel bar tapered at one end to hammer longitudinally to break the bonding agent, and 2 small question mark-curve crow bars used to gently pry up

 

[Richard Bryer]

Thanks very much for the pics- shows me what I am looking forward to when I get to that job!

 

[Ilanortho]

You're welcome!
BTW, I notice that in your pic you appear to have navpods on your binnacle. I am trying to convert my binnacle guard to do the same. Can you fill me in what you did? Thanks. Ilan

 

[PGIJon]

Thank you for the pics and Great Job Ilan! -Jon

 

[Allan12210]

Those pics are great. Thanks for sharing them.

Regarding reattaching, I still think you can through bolt with a few well prepared holes that won't allow destructive consequences if there are leaks. In fact, visible leakage would be good as it will tell you when its time to re-bed the machine screws. Having slightly oversized pass through holes in the deck (sealed with epoxy) will allow butyl tape to squish into them at the interface of the sea hood and deck. I doubt it would ever leak again anyway with that material.

 

[Ilanortho]

Thanks; looks better now that is cleaned up but don't have pics; the tools used are really the key.

 

[Ilanortho]

Those pics are great. Thanks for sharing them.

Regarding reattaching, I still think you can through bolt with a few well prepared holes that won't allow destructive consequences if there are leaks. In fact, visible leakage would be good as it will tell you when its time to re-bed the machine screws. Having slightly oversized pass through holes in the deck (sealed with epoxy) will allow butyl tape to squish into them at the interface of the sea hood and deck. I doubt it would ever leak again anyway with that material.

Thanks for your advice again. Good to hear from you.

My concern is that constant walking around on the sea hood will cause repetitive axial loading and unloading of the bolts and deck surfaces which would seem to guarantee eventual ingress of water. Maybe that's why Hunter chose to use multiple (60!) screws that are lightly loaded and only penetrate the outer fiberglass layer. In fact, the areas that are thru-bolted at the winches and rope clutches are heavily reinforced in the core, which is not the case for the very flexible surfaces elsewhere under the sea hood. When I walk on those surfaces, they actually flex underfoot, and drilling a few exploratory holes there is actually no core material between outer and inner fiberglass skins!

As such the sea hood seems to take these stress and is very rigid in its three-dimensional geometry. If I thru bolt to flexible under surface I'm afraid it will leak eventually, even with butyl tape which I have in abundance from Maine Sail.

 

[splax]

support the hood at the bolt and it will not appreciably flex there...

 

[Richard Bryer]

The "nav pods" are the old OE instrument enclosures for the Datamarine depth and speed instruments. The knotmeter was not working when we bought the boat 13 years ago. The depth finder packed it in this year.

 

[Ilanortho]

How did you attach to the pedestal guard?

 

[Richard Bryer]

The nav pods are attached to a plate/base that has two holes in it that the pedestal guard goes thru.

 

[Ilanortho]

Thanks. Ilan

 

[peacheykeen]

THanks muchly for all your pics. Did you leave the mainsheet track on the hood??
Just going at mine now and yes, I think that the bond is a polyurethane. I'm meeting resistance at the main track beam. I have taken the end stops/sheeve housing off but the hood still won't lift. Your pictures appear show a hole in the inboard
fibreglass "post" where possibly? one of the track bolts has entered that fibreglass beam?????
Seeing the dirt on that inner beam on yours make me hope that the factory didn't bond mine at that point!!!!

 

[peacheykeen]

I intend to use4200 to reinstall. DOn't want to leave all those screw holes exposed to ingress as indeed they "just" protrude into underside. Whatever screws or bolts you use, make sure you put sealant under the screw heads.

 

[peacheykeen]

later the same day.
Wouldn't ya know it, there's two screws hidden under the mainsheet track, that secure the hood to the inner "beam", one on each side. I didn't want to cut them with a bare hacksaw blade and I couldn't get the track bolts out that are just projecting through and below the bonded-in metal threaded plate, at that point.
Five of those 14-20 FH MS either stripped their heads or sheared the bit (3/16) on my handheld impact driver!!!!!
Cobalt bits to tackle them tomorrow. Will also figure out if I can drill an access hole through the track to access those hidden
screw headsl (presuming that they're #10's) for future removal.
I will add pictures when the sob comes up :-(

 

[Ilanortho]

OK; so reading your posts I will post the following pics:
1: The original setup. I was able to remove all screws without the problems. The end port and stbd screws screw into the port and stbd pedestals on the deck on each side of the seahood. Once we cut the new Harken High Beam 32mm track to the correct length using the old Schaeffer track as a partial reference ( be VERY careful here and check with the new Harken end stops as their screw hole may necessitate length adjustment with careful measuring and not just cut to the old Schaeffer track length) we used the new Harken end stop on one side to drill and tap to a larger screw diameter recommended by Harken. We then position the other end stop to mark the exact hole position and repeated to drill a hole in the new track.
2: You can see the seahood in place with the old track removed prior to seahood removal. As I recall all subsequent screws go only into the seahood and not the deck, so you could probably pull off the hood with the track attached to it
3: Just to demo; screws have already been all removed
4: The million dollar shot: under surface of the seahood showing the screw holes the track screws screw into. There is a metal plate bonded into the hood that they thread into so they don't have to go into the cabin top. You will need to overdrill these to larger diameter but not tap as the old screws will be replace with nuts and bolts so you can tighten them on the underside of the hood given the T-slot design of the new track
5: Seahood refinished with all 60 holes filled in and beautifully refinished by the glass boys at Centerpointe marina. The new track is mounted. The old screw holes securing the rail to the seahood were drilled out oversize to accept the new BOLTS whose heads slot into the new Harken track's T-slot allowing flexible positioning. The new bolts are now loosely slotted into the new track's T-slot and into the oversized holes in the seahood which is laid in place on the deck and secured on both sides to the deck pedestal columns, and because of the design of the hood you can reach under and apply a nut to one bolt on each side and tighten it. Now remove the pedestal end screws, lift the hood and tighten the remaining bolts to the sea hood. You can now reattach the seahood to the deck securely (4000 UV and a few strategic screws or through bolts rather than the 60 that were filled in and put the final end screw on each side of the track into the pedestal.
6: Bonus pic of the new Spinlock rope clutches I attached and the cam cleat for the main traveler sheet so I don't have to reach fwd to cleat and uncleat.

I never want to think about this process again. It was all-consuming for several weeks

 

[Ilanortho]

Sorry; I have no idea why some of the pics uploaded as duplicates several times!

 

[peacheykeen]

Thanks for that update and photos. I had to take the track off, that was day alone as the shafts of the 1/4-20 screws were seized (SS and aluminum don't mix well) in the track. Using dry ice I got all but 5 out, 4 I head to drill off the heads, the fifth and last one on the right, the Philips head had a hardened tool tip in it and couldn't be drilled. So I just used a hack saw to
cut into the track laterally to severe the screw.
Then, UNDER the track, I found two 1/4-20 2" machine screws holding the seahood down!!!!!! they are screwed into the fibreglass pedestal-waterdam. You can see the glob of 5200 on the aft end of that dam where the machine screws go in, and the right side screw hanging down from the seahood.

When I replaced the hatch, I had checked the threads in the glass, all ok so those 2 machine screws went back in with all of the 10-24 screws on a bed of 4200, with 4200 under the head of each screw. Too rain storms later, NO problem.

Cleaned the threads on the track mount with a tap, and put grease on each new 1/4-20, to prevent corrosion with the alum track in future