Top Cap problems at transom

[egbass]

Not sure how to handle the separation I'm getting from the top cap and hull back near the transom. It's difficult to push the two halves together. If I did get them together I feel like there would always be this spring force trying to separate them. One thought is to have fiberglass added to the top cap, then seal and screw halves together. BTW - the straps in the picture are loose.





I have higher res close-ups at http://share.shutterfly.com/ac...tag=1

Thanks!

[egbass]

My shutterfly link isn't working so here are a couple of extra shots.

[boostedone]

(A)Did you do a transom replacement and just cant get the peices to line back up?? Or (B) is this the result of years of use and you are trying to get it back together?
If the answer is B, that thing probably has a very rotten transom, and the reason for the seperation is the engine pulling down in the middle and seperating the hull from the cap. Tilt your motor up and lift up on the skeg, see if the transom moves. I would bet that it does, and if so, you need a transom replacement before your engine ends up at the bottom of the lake/river.

[javelin90]

Do you have strees cracks in the splashwell area? It could be the transom is rotten like Boostedone mentioned. I have a 1990 396XFD Javelin and am in process of replacing the transom and floor as well as boostedone is i think replacing his transom also. Let me know if you have any questions.
Thanks, Garland

[boostedone]

Yep, just bought the wood today and drilled the heads off 190 or so rivets :D

[Skeet'r89]

Dude, if you haven't seperated this on purpose, I would say you have some serious problems! Have you tried releasing the transom tie dowms?

[egbass]

I can get the transom to flex some. The top cap overlaps the hull just fine where the splashwell and transom meet so its not actually oulled down in the middle but the corner of the "toons" (forget what they're actually called)

A local shop was recommended to me that has done quite a few transom, stringer, etc repairs that is willing to do an evaluation for no charge. When I started asking them about transom repairs and explained the top cap separation their response was hey the transom may not be bad, bring it in, let them check and determine $ as it may not be worth fixing for year of boat.

Thanks for the insight...


Modified by egbass at 8:43 PM 6/21/2007

[egbass]

Tie downs were already loose in picture. Thanks!

[Rollo331]

something is flexing somewhere....maybe the knee braces or lack of??????? you can see that it used to be over the edge ...hence the sealer left on the boat where it used to be......you need to find out why it is not going back over....

[egbass]

Thanks. Just so I'm sure what I'm looking for. Were the knee braces glued and glassed to the transom or would there have been screws used along with glue to attach the knee brace to the transom?

If I end up removing the top cap, can I expect places the top cap is glassed on the inside?

Other than the consoles attaching to the floor is there anywhere else I need to worry about breaking a bond/connection?

[Skeet'r89]

Good Luck on the evaluation.

[egbass]

OK, so I trimmed the motor to 45 degrees and got in a good squat lifting position and grapped the bottom of the motor and lifted with my legs and walla - the two halves went together.

I'm to big to get in and poke around too much so I did a bunch of poking and prodding with a screw driver and took a bunch of pictures with the digital camera reaching in whereever I could. I'm on dial-up so I'll post them later as I'll let them upload to shutterfly overnight but here is a quick synopsis.

The knee braces in my opinion (not that I seen a lot of boat designs) do not go up far enough on the transom.

The starboard knee brace may be starting to pull away but the port side doesn't seem to be and its the side with worst separation (maybe validating the short knee brace theory).

A jackplate (which was already on the boat when I bought it) may have not been a good idea for it. Also, who knows how many times the boat may have been trailered without a transom saver. It had one when I bought it.

The bottom of the bilge area on one side of the float switch is rotted.

The port side inside stringer in the bilge feels solid from the gas tank to the air hoses (don't ask me why I didn't move these to check)

The starboard side inside stringer is solid from the gas tank to the livewell pump but from the pump to the battery charger "shelf" before the transom it is pretty easy to flex. I didn't want to press to hard but I almost felt if I did I could get my screwdriver point to break the stringer.

In the pictures you will see places where the floation foam has crack that is probably from the transom flexing.

Thanks to everyone for reading the long post...

Pictures coming soon...

[boostedone]

Nice.
I guess there is a chance that just your knee braces are rotted out and your transom boards are fine, but I dont know if you can get a real good repair just by replacing the knee bracing. From what I can tell, it seems like the norm is to install a new transom/kneebrace/bilgefloor as an assembly, where the knee braces are screwed to each. I guess you could just clean up the transom board and the floor board and glass in new knee braces, but I dont think it will be as strong.

If I was in your shoes and had to remove the top cap to do this work, I'd probably just do the transom board anyhow while it was split, that way it doesnt have to be done in the next few years.

[egbass]

My connection crashed last night so all of my pictures didn't upload but here's some to get started. 3 Knee brace pictures and the bilge area picture.







Bilge Area: Dry Rot to right of float switch and along right hand side of cut-out, but not all the way to stringer.





Modified by egbass at 6:06 PM 6/22/2007

[Skeet'r89]

Looks like you have a fix-um up job to do. Its a pretty tedious job, but as you can see others have and are repairing the transom snd stringers themselves. Good Luck with what ever you choose to do.

[perfect-storm]

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by egbass &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

If I end up removing the top cap, can I expect places the top cap is glassed on the inside?
</TD></TR></TABLE>

No, that would be the proper way for a cap to be attached but none of the production manufacturers do it.

[javelin90]

I removed my top cap and you will want to make sure that there is no fiberglass holding the rox box sides to the floor. I had to cut the glass on mince cause it was preventing me from removing the top cap. If this is the case you will need to reglass the places you cut.
Let me know if you need any help.
Thanks