positive attitude

[weekender]

My Dad always told me "if a man can do it, you can do it". Nobody says it will be easy or you will get it the first try.

cobia beware, I coming......

I wrote this post for a great site ClassicSeacraft.com. Tons of onfo there on ALL types of boat repair.

First let me thank all those that share the knowledge on this site. I don't have a SeaCraft but since I used this site exclusively for my training I wanted to post here. I had known my transom was going bad, something I should have seen when I bought this wore out piece of junk (my boats name is Mak'N Do and it fits) but I didn't. The Johnson motor it came with blew not long after I bought the boat and the mechanic that put the Yammie on the back told me I would be into the transom soon and installed this plate to buy me some time.



I had never used fiberglass in my life but read through nearly every thread on this site and figured I would give the job a shot. I have been out of work for 11 months with a badly broken leg and I have a lot more time than money so it was a do it yourself project. My plan was to use Nida bond pour and try to dig out the pulp from the cap like it shows on the SeaCast site. Well that was plan A.

you can see how the bolts had sunk in the inside of the transom



After suiting up,



I cut the top off the cap and saw mush, looked like it was gonna be easy.





nothing in life is that easy. It didn't take long to see that there was some mush but there was way too much hard wood to get it all out the top and do a good job. I decided to cut the skin.









Crow bar, hammer and chisel, lots, and it was cleaned up pretty good.





patched all the holes and put in about a dozen 1 1/2" spacers I made from resin.



ground my outer skin and border and through bolted my spacers to hold my outter skin back on.



glassed her back on and poured the Nida-bond in two pourings. First was up to the top of the cap and as soon as it started to harden I poured the wings. Next day started farring. I need some practice here cause farring took longer than anything else.



ready for motor and rerigging.



the money I saved doing the job myself went to fix my wore out trailer problems. I hope I get good service from this new EZLoader.



back from the test run today, new trailer adjusted, everything worked just fine.



I was very impressed with the Nida-bond. It poured easy, was self leveling, cured quick, was hard in a couple hours. I can stand on the cav plate of the 200 HP and there is no flex what so ever in the transom. SOLID. I know most of you are plywood guys but I choose the pour thinking of only removing the top of the cap. Plan B worked, it just took a heck of a lot longer. I worked on it off and on for three weeks dodging bad weather.

Thanks again so much for a fantastic site and all the knowelge shared here.

[cravertosu]

WOW!! That just looks awesome!! Never would've guessed that was something you did for the first time!!!

Great work and I look forward to seeing the pictures of the fish she catches!!

Tim

[WAHOONBOX]

I AM SPEECHLESS!!!! CUZ THIS IS AWESOME!!!!!!

GREAT ATTITUDE!

[bigfish4me]

Looks great, theres nothing like doing it yourself.

[dolphinfrenzi]

Greg
Buddy you NEVER cease to amaze me, I wish I had 1/10th of that ability to do some of the things you do, unfortunately my mind does not think that way.

[juicyhook]

Very nice job on the transom repair, amazing what you find below fiberglass sometimes. Rotten wood hide for years.

[clt_capt]

Well done.

[beaglewoman]

wow. great work.

[Nauti Natured]

Pretty work! It is so true ... as long as you take your time you can do anything yourself.

THanks for the inspiration!

[Avenger]

You are a brave man weekender.

I can't tell you how it makes me curdle when somebody comes in to my shop with a bunch off stuff they "got off the intenet". You sir, obviously came to the right place and had your head together. Very thorough job and, it looks like, excellent results.

I've got an old plywood-cored-transom runabout that I'm about to refurbish and I'm going to bookmark this thread for inspiration. Thanks for sharing, and best of luck with her. I know every time you mash the throttle you'll reflect on this and smile.

Now go get some blood on it!