Hi everyone. I have something of a project in my bilge and I'm looking for input.
I bought hull 3688 last fall (27, '77). She's in good shape - no evidence of the smile - lots of work done by earlier owners. She does have rusty keel bolts, however, and I'm working on identifying the source of a trickle that runs into the bilge from aft. (She's an outboard btw)
I have done a bunch of reading and I'm given to understand there's probably a piece of plywood under the glass bottom of the bilge that needs to be chiseled out and glassed back over, but that procedure seems dependent on being able to take the nuts off the keel bolts, which I don't expect I can do with the current state of them.
I was planning to do a keel bolt retrofit using either lag bolts or the windowing method, but I need a plan to tackle the whole project in the right sequence to avoid having to undo and redo things later. If I remove the plywood from the bilge and re-glass, it's going to lower the floor of the bilge and I'll not be able to tighten the existing nuts down on the new surface - so now what?
I could remove as much of the plywood as possible and build up the glass around the bolts to meet them at their current height? Or is there something else I should be doing?
Has anyone dealt with this confluence of factors before?
Grateful for any advice.
Cheers
I bought hull 3688 last fall (27, '77). She's in good shape - no evidence of the smile - lots of work done by earlier owners. She does have rusty keel bolts, however, and I'm working on identifying the source of a trickle that runs into the bilge from aft. (She's an outboard btw)
I have done a bunch of reading and I'm given to understand there's probably a piece of plywood under the glass bottom of the bilge that needs to be chiseled out and glassed back over, but that procedure seems dependent on being able to take the nuts off the keel bolts, which I don't expect I can do with the current state of them.
I was planning to do a keel bolt retrofit using either lag bolts or the windowing method, but I need a plan to tackle the whole project in the right sequence to avoid having to undo and redo things later. If I remove the plywood from the bilge and re-glass, it's going to lower the floor of the bilge and I'll not be able to tighten the existing nuts down on the new surface - so now what?
I could remove as much of the plywood as possible and build up the glass around the bolts to meet them at their current height? Or is there something else I should be doing?
Has anyone dealt with this confluence of factors before?
Grateful for any advice.
Cheers