TOPIC: There ain't no such thing as a half-transom repair

Okay, I've been gnawing away at the transom wood for a couple of weeks now. Here's how it looked from the inside when I picked at it with a screwdriver.



I thought maybe I could just pick out the bad wood, treat it with Copper Napthenate and piece in some new wood. The further I went, the more soft wood I found. Pretty soon I had removed almost half and was spending a lot of time trying to remove the bolts and Tee nuts used to bolt a 2"x6" horizontal stiffener to the inside of the transom. The Tee nuts are large chunks of steel embedded in the plywood and are spinning inside the wood. So, I have to chisel around them and finally get an inch and one-eighth box wrench on them and use an impact wrench to get the bolt out.

Finally, I have come to the realization I need to replace the entire transom with new wood. In order to do that, I had to remove part of the cap which was in the way. Yesterday, I did the dirty deed, using a jig saw and a Roto-Zip tool with a metal-cutting 3-1/2" wheel. Here's what resulted:







I still have three of the five Tee nuts and 3/8" x 6" long bolts to remove, then I will resume working with the 14" electric chainsaw I bought on sale at Harbor Freight. It works a lot better than a chisel and mallet. One of the Tee nuts had to be removed through a hole I sawed in the transom.



More reports to follow.

I had to do my Whitehouse transom. It was not too bad, kinda like working on a big model. Good luck on that!

Thanks - both for the good wishes and the reply. I was beginning to think this was of little or no interest to the group.

Now if it would just stop raining for a bit!

I was fearing doing the transom on my Delmar .Tried some different stuff but then Thought ..Im gonna keep this Puppy till I croak ..Do I really want to be crawling around it inside say even 10 years from now when I could have bit the bullet and did it right the first time ?? HECK NO !!! ...L.O.L..So keep on Keeping on . We will see the promised land if we persavere ...L.O.L..

Clark wrote:

I was beginning to think this was of little or no interest to the group.

Please don't get discouraged if sometimes it takes a while before anyone responds. Sometimes distractions like family, work, etc. keep us from paying the attention we'd like to our hobby.

Doing a transom correctly is the best thing you can do to insure a boat lasts for another 50 years. Sometimes it's not for the faint hearted. You can follow my Power Cat 18DC rebuild here:

www.powercatboat.com/Group/BL_18dc/BL_18dc01.html

You will find that everything OMC did on those boats was an overkill; Nothing will be easy.

Guess the switchbox you were looking for a few weeks ago is no longer on the fast track?

Jim

Jim ..........

The urgency is somewhat diminished, but fortunately a member here has one and we have made a deal on it. I'm looking forward to getting it so when it comes time to re-wire, I'll have all the stuff.

I was really glad to hear a member state on the JEGO forum that his 75 V-4 has 75-80# compression and still runs well. This one has 70-72 and hasn't been run for six years. I think the compression may come up a bit after some running and I won't have to do anything other than perhaps carb cleaning, etc. I did purchase an extra 90 hp power head which is supposed to be very good. However, I checked it's compression and got 25# on every cyl! The starter would barely crank it over with the plugs out and the gauge in one spark plug hole. At the very least, it needs a starter rebuild. At the most, the engine is junk. Oh well, didn't cost much and I'll have a lot of spare parts if something on the 75 breaks.