[Bret]

I know that this wont be near as entertaining as the ******* thread... but..
here it is.
Noticed after the roundup that I had transom problems. It was cracked and moving.. not good. Talked to Wacker and he was kind enough to offer his help and barn to do the job. I took last friday off and headed to Ingleside, unloaded the majority of stuff off of the boat and headed to Seguin. We made quick work of de-rigging motors etc.. and at first glance thought we would be doing a repair. Saturdaymorning. we start poking, prodding, cutting and tearing.. we Then realized that there was maybe 3square inches of wood that was not sopping wet or rotten on the entire transom... Plan change ......The motors and bracket are coming off. This could have been a commercial for 3-M 5200. We pull the motors without issue and hook the chain hoist onto the bracket.. (after removing all mounting bolts) This thing won't budge.. After an hour we finally get a small prybar behind it and then a cold chisel, and then after pounding on a 6' prybar with a sledge hammer, it is still picking up the boat off of the trailer without moving. We get another 6' prybar on the other side and the 5200 finally releases the death grip on the bracket and it comes off. Now the fun part. we get to the task of cutting and grinding.
I am the fourth owner of this grady, so there is no telling what all was done over the years. We get through tearing all of the deck(that was not attached to the stern anyhow), glass, and wood. there was 1 sheet of 1/4in wolmanized plywood against the stern, then they layed in 2 sheets of 3/4in and finish nailed it all together then glassed it in... I forgot to add. each side was 1.5-2inches short of either corner and the void had epoxy poured into them. When we hit the corners with a grinder, water just poured out of both sides.. not good. We cut the stringers out of the way and ground all of the 1/4 down to clean fiberglass... Now we get to start laying it up..
Since the boat was originally designed for the OMC Sea-drives, we are going to add some braces to the transom and tie them all together... If the transom goes now it will take the boat with it. Here are some pics..
Wacker will get one more of the clean glass on the inside. . I will post it when I get it. I will keep yall up on the progress

 

[Bret]

a few more

Once we got all of the broken stuff and rotten wood out of the way. the hull and cap came backtogether nearly perfect.

 

[Guest]

well hopefully mine will get back out of the shop and i can take you offshore before this year is history. good luck on your project and i am sure the hard licker is going to be back together and better real soon as i know hunting season will be upon us shortly....lol....rick

 

[Fishhead56]

Thanks for the post as I am very interested in your stern repair project.

I recall when you posted the failure.

As I am researching, Which means an advanced stage of day dreaming,

repowering a late 70's to early 80's express type hull with a bracket and

OB engines. In the 28' - 30' length range. A gas powered inboard or I\O

hull is what I'm looking to convert. The rigging of the mechanical or electrical

I got coverd plus some insight from some larger boat owners. But starting off

with rotten wood scares the you know what out of me.

I have found a usefull if not opioninated web page by a long time Marine surveyor David Pascoe. Yacht Survey Online: David Pascoe, Marine Surveyor with informative articles and hull reviews.

If anyone has a link on bracket conversions or install I would be interested.

Good luck on your Grady repair.

Kev.

 

[Bret]

Thanks Rick.. I might have to take you up on it... We should have it done by
Sept 1.. Oh, yeah, I almost forgot about hunting season.......

Kev, look at dadmarine.com. they did my bracket. there are links that have lots of info about the brackets.

 

[STx Fisherman]

The Hard Licker will be as good as new in no time....good luck, Bret.

 

[Pope]

From the looks of it the break offshore may have been a good thing after all. The Hard Licker will get purring again.

 

[Bret]

heres some pics after the grinding.. nothing left by 1/4in of glass. just a bit more grinding before we start the lay up process..

 

[CAP]

I sure can appreciate the enormous hassle involved and your williness to tackle the problems. Good luck with the project and keep the pictures coming.

-CP

 

[DavidG]

Bret,

Did you slice of the outside skin or are you working from the inside out? I'm sure some of the GW websites have some transom rebuild info, but if you look at the ClassicMako forum (or on THT in the pictures forum) Ringleader has a very long, well documented post on rebulding his Mako 26 transom. I think the West system epoxy website has some good info on rebuilds and you can get one of thier repair manuals too.


Be sure to get all of that dead wood out of there and be sure to check your stringers too. Drill cores until you get good wood, then cut out the bad.

Go back in with marine fir ply (Okoome or Meranti if you really want to splurge) and use a good epoxy (West is easily available but Raka is a good low blush epoxy that is usually less expensive than the others).

Be sure post more pictures of the process. I love you seeing someone going at a boat with a grinder.

David

 

[Bret]

David,
we left the glass and are doing the inside layup. We considered cutting it all out, but we have a 1/4" of good solid glass to layup to. and didnt really want to start wrapping around the sides.... way too much fairing involved.
Luckily there is a plywood hub here in Ft worth, that carries Marine grade ply. I will be back at it next weekend and should have the transom, and stringers layed up, and maybe get the deck and battery boxes built. hopefully, we will be rolling on some gelcoat, and getting ready to mount the bracket.
I did look at the mako site and looked at all of those guys jobs.. great info there. Wacker's buddy used to work at the Radon plant in CA. He has been advising us on most of the structural stuff.

 

[MrBill]

Grinding fiberglass sucks. Hope after all your work, the engines don't fail. I have four friends that have blown up outboards this year. When you try to get warranty work done, they put it on the back shelf. Not one of them has a working boat right now. None of them expect to be back on the water this summer unless they buy brand new engines. It's almost like the manufactures want it to stay in the shop for the duration of the warranty so they don't have to fix it the second time.

One guy had triples. Two blew up this year. Only two years old. Another guy was telling me that his three year warranty ran out and they won't sell him an extended warranty. All major brands are having their problems this year. The only brand that I haven't heard with problems this year is the Suzuki's.

 

[Bret]

Grinding fiberglass sucks. Hope after all your work, the engines don't fail. I have four friends that have blown up outboards this year.The only brand that I haven't heard with problems this year is the Suzuki's.

Dont jinx me MrBill...... Those motors are 96 models and have been running fine...... I am hopeful they will last another season before I upgrade to suzuki 4strokes.....

 

[Bret]

Headed down south for more fiberglass torture.
We got all three layers layed up nice and solid. got it all tied in.. but ran out of resin before we could rebuild and attach the stringers. We did get the transom patched up and gelcoated.... We are on the downhill slide now..

 

[Bret]

We now know the hard way to rebuild a transom.. if there's a next time... The top cap will be cut and removed.. If we didnt have to piece it in.. we could have layed up it all up at once and been done... Live and Learn..
Big thanks goes out to Wacker.. That dude is like the energizer bunny.. he keeps going and going and going....

 

[rhale]

Don't you just love that ITCHY,ITCHY,SCRATCHY,SCRATCHY feeling !!!!!! It gets even better when you slip into bed at night and pull the sheet over you.

Nice work Bret. It sucks that you had to do it in the middle of the season but at least your almost done.. How close did the new gelcoat match up to the old? Have fun cleaning up that dirty shop. Ronnie

 

[Bret]

Don't you just love that ITCHY,ITCHY,SCRATCHY,SCRATCHY feeling !!!!!! It gets even better when you slip into bed at night and pull the sheet over you.

Nice work Bret. It sucks that you had to do it in the middle of the season but at least your almost done.. How close did the new gelcoat match up to the old? Have fun cleaning up that dirty shop. Ronnie


Yeah, its quite a sensation....Itchy.... I have found that duct tape will help get a lot of that glass out of the skin.. I would love to take credit for the finish work, but Wacker is the man on that stuff. I was just there to mix resin and keep him in materials.
the gelcoat is stark white compared to the hull, we might tint some more and see if its better.

 

[Pope]

I do have to hand it too wacker for jumping in to help like that. He is quite a guy! Looks like he joined the KKK from the pics....

 

[lite-liner]

little fiberglass itch hint:
when you're done, wash your hands/arms in very cold water.
this closes up your pores & makes the fibers stand up. then scrub
firmly but gently w/ a piece of green Scotchbrite. lather w/ soap & rinse
and that nasty feeling is gone.
That is an Excellent repair. more than I'd ever want to tackle.
How does the bracket fasten back in?
tight lines
-Brian

 

[Bret]

Thanks for the tip Brian.
The bracket is through bolted and backed up by 3 pieces of 4in channel alum.