Bilge Plug Repair - (pictures)

[EberbachD]

Hello all,

Here is my attempt to resolve the issue of water backing up against the bilge plug in the transom, which can result in rot of the wood in the transom. If the pics don't work, they can be seen at
http://www.hometown.aol.com/davideberbach/myhomepage/gwhiz2

After removing the old plug assembly, I measured and marked for a new hole into the transom. The new hole is wide enough to accomodate a length of PVC pipe that is wide enough to inset the new plug assembly.

After drilling and sanding, I inserted the pvc until it bumped up against the bilge. Marked and cut proper length of PVC.


Put silicon on the end of the pvc and inserted into the transom, filling additional silicon on the inside to complete the seal to the bilge. Also sealed the outside of the repair with silicon.

Inset new assembly, marked pilot holes, siliconed and screwed plug into place.


Additional note - Because I had significant rot of the wood in the lower transom, I glued solid vinyl pieces into the transom - left and right of the plug- in order to have something solid to screw the plug assembly into.

[Roger]

How long was the hole, before you finally got into the bilge void?

and how did you post those picts right into the message body?

[psness]

Last week I attempted a repair to mine by coating the wood walls around the hole with silicone. One of my screw holes was angled in and was broken out to the center plug hole (the screw was just sitting there) so when I inserted a new plug fitting everything was heavily siliconed. Then I siliconed around the outer edge of the fitting after it was screwed in. I checked it Sunday and all seems to have cured properly and is holding. You did a much better job by cutting a wider hole. I wish I had seen it before doing my work. One question though - Where did you get the new oversized plug? All the ones I've seen have the same/similar screw width as my old one. An oversized plug would be great given the breakout of one my existing screw holes.

[EberbachD]

Actually I did not enlarge the entrance into the bilge, only the exterior of the transom. I thought it would be better to butt the pvc against the existing opening - It seems to provide a solid anchor that way. So the PVC is only 1 1/2 inches or so. I did add silicon on the inside of the join to be sure that it is watertight. If this works well, I may glass/resin the pvc in for a more permanent fix. If you really wanted to get serious, you could try to taper the inner part of the pvc to more closely match the bilge. Since 3/4 of it was flat, I thought I would add extra silicon instead. Filing down the pvc to match the outside of the transom, took longer than anything else. If I redo this at some point, I would probably leave the PVC a little short of the transom, and glass it in for a more finished look.

In regard to the larger plug assembly - I believe that the one that I replaced was original on the boat. I ordered a new one from D & R, actually hoping that it would be the same size. It actually was slightly larger, so I thought as long as had to widen the hole for the new plug, I'd try this repair. Btw, D & R handled my order very promptly. I ordered via e-mail and had it in my hands in less than a week. I would think that larger plug assembly ( for other types of boat) would be available with a little looking.

Lastly, imbedding the pictures into the post is a function of BBCode. If it is turned on, you should see a IMG button above your post. You type in the code into your post which pulls the image out of an existing web page. To get the info to put in the code, open the web page with the pic and right click on the picture that you like to add, select properties, and copy the address info. Paste it into the code and you have a picture. Check the preview button to be sure it worked.

[boone]

and how did you post those picts right into the message body?

Please check out this thread:
http://forum.daysailer.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1162

[Roger]

Ok thanks people for the info on posting pics. Here goes, please bear with me as I test my image posting abilities.

[img]http://groups.msn.com/_Secure/0SgAAAKMW4Vn5IPealQBUfFapJGb![/img]

[Roger]

[Roger]

Code: Select all

[img]http://groups.msn.com/_Secure/0SgAAAKMW4Vn5IPealQBUfFapJGb![/img]

[Roger]

Any ideas on what I am doing wrong?

[EberbachD]

Roger,
What is the exact link of the page with the picture that you want to test?

[EberbachD]

Roger,
I tried it with one of your pictures on your MSN site, and it didn't work for me either. I wonder if it is an issue with MSN. You should try doing it the other way, loading the pic to the daysailer page and linking it there, per Boone's instructions and see if that works for you.

[Roger]

I suspect that I have the same problem as when I try to upload the pics to this website as you say 'according to Boon's instructions'.

My pics ar too large because they are shot in high res format. If i reduce the size of the pic then I can upload. Let me try to downsize my prior picture and we shall see...

Code: Select all

[img]http://groups.msn.com/RogerConrad/shoebox.msnw?action=ShowPhoto&PhotoID=182bilge%20drain.jpg?[/img]

[Roger]

Well that picture was only 19k so maybe it is an MSN issue. The direct link is

http://groups.msn.com/RogerConrad/shoeb ... hotoID=182

[boone]

I just realized why your image links aren't working. The bulletin board software requires that your image names end in a known extension, like .jpg or .png or .gif. Your MSN image links don't do that.

To upload to the photos section on this site, you need to resize your image so that it's no larger than 800x600 pixels, and less than 128k in size. Then it should post OK.

[Roger]

OK it looks like I figured it out. I didn't put the code, but instead used IMG then pasted the link and then closed the tags. The image appears as a thumbnail only anc cannot be expanded. I also loaded it into an album section of my webpage instead of the pictures section. I tried posting another pic from the pictures section to determine if that is an issue, and indeed it seems to be. On MSN groups one can only post from albums.