Well I just recently posted about getting the dead mouse/urine smell out of my boat, but after a ton of cleaning solutions, the smell remained. In addition, I found out that I had a problem with one of the trim switches being shorted in the up position, which I'm pretty sure was the front deck switch. Anyways, I decided to pull the front deck out, and do some more thorough cleaning. When I did, I found a huge nest on the starboard side, down in the foam. Once I got all the debris cleaned out, I realized that the foam is wet and somewhat deteriorated underneath where the nest was sitting. (about a 6"x6" area)

So my question is, should I just clean it and let the foam dry well, or should I dig down to see if there is more damage? I stuck a screwdriver down in the worst spot, and it seems solid, and there is still a lot of foam before you get down to the hull. It does appear rather saturated right now, but since the boat was dry for three years, I'm pretty sure the water is just from me cleaning it this weekend. If I would go through removing it, my next question is, what do I replace it with, can you buy the expanding foam somewhere? Also, when I pulled it apart, I found a ton of loose pieces of foam that Tracker left in there when the boat was built. It was equally disgusting, so I've pitched it, but should I replace all of that? Can I just pour more expanding foam on top of what is there?

My other question is, where else should I look for damage. The floor looks pretty straight-forward to pull out, but the back deck looks impossible to remove without tearing up carpet, and drilling rivets out. Is there any way to get into there without causing major damage?

Thanks for the help!
--Mike



Modified by mjfrank at 5:10 PM 6/30/2009