New Transom on my 250 CCP

[billsaquasport]

Well I definetly have a bad transom. After many hours of deliberation on full transom/bracket or keep it the way it came from AS I have decided to leave it the way it came. Really disappointed to see the transom failing but what can you expect from a 20+ year old boat and a heavy 4 stroke Honda. Im planning on using the ARJAY pourable material. After hours of research this seems like the best choice for several reasons. Any input would be appriciated. I will post pictures as I progress on the project. I hope to have the motor off and start the fun work by Sunday. I will do my best to supply step by step pics and comments as the project grinds on.







EDIT ADMIN: Bill I fixed your post so you can learn what the codes look like you need to copy from Photobucket.  In the bottom right of the post window (look to the right of what you're reading right now) you see an "Edit" button.  Click that and look at the IMG codes that surround the path to your pics.  When you go to photobucket, click on the pic you want to show us and then look for that img code and copy the whole thing and paste it in your post.

[GarrettS]

Bill, I am about to redo the transom too. I researched seacast, nidabond, and arjay. After speaking with Tommy at Hammerhead, I decided to use Arjay too. He said it pours much better than the others and has had really good results. Good luck.

[billsaquasport]

I talked with Tommy and Hermco as well and they both had nothing but good things to say about ARJAY. I got pricing and it is 120.00 per 5 gallons and 5.29 for catalyst. ARJAY claims no problem on multiple pours, great viscocity for leveling, but drills like concrete. I will get started this weekend and post updates. I will retry pictures later. For some reason I couldnt get them to post last night. Take care and good luck!

[billsaquasport]

Admin you are the man! Thanks!

[billsaquasport]

Quick update. The motor is off and safely stored.    I started cutting away a the top of the transom to expose the wood. Expected it to be a couple layers of glass thick, trim it off, and there is the wood. Not so much. The top of the transom is almost 1 inch thick solid glass. Obviously this is where the strength Starboard to port was on the transom. I actually think that I will have to cut down from the top of the transom at least 7/8 of an inch and remove the 1 inch thick top cap. Very interesting lay up not at all what I expected. I did expose about 4 inches of the transom to get to the wood, and it is mush. Really kind of scary how bad the wood was. If you look at the previous pictures I have posted the crack that is running fore/aft is actually in a piece of solid glass that is 2.5 inches wide by 1 inch thick. I think one wrong wave and I might have been setting the EPIRB off. I cant wait to get into it further. More updates tomorrow.

Was this a normal lay up of the top of the transom for Aquasports? My brothers Seacraft had just a couple layers of glass encapsulating the wood at the top of the transom.  No exageration the lay up on the top of my transom is 1 inch thick minimum! I also hate to admit but my brothers transom is 10 years older than mine and in much better shape as far as the wood is concerned. Still leaning toward ARJAY transom but now have to make up for 1" of solid glass on the top of the transom that I have to remove to get to the bad wood. Im sure I will have to lay up the transom and extra inch in order to pour the ARJAY. Maybe Im a little sick but this stuff is fun!

Any advice or input would be appriciated!

It is now Beer Thirty!  :P

[slvrlng]

Hey Bill, I think most all of our hulls had a cap on the transom. Mine has cracks like this.

Post some pics when you can so we can see what you are talking about.

[LilRichard]

I have seen from 1/2" to 1" of glass as a cap - not all that surprising.  Let's see some pics!

[billsaquasport]

Well I got the top cap completly off and it revealed what I expected no solid wood left in the transom. I have got about 40% of the wood removed and will get to work on getting the remainder out tomorrow. Quick question.... I noticed that the transom was built out of 2 layer of plywood and glass but the layout does not carry all of the way up the vertical section of the gunnels. It appears that the transom goes across with 2 layers of plywood only as high as the top of the transom and the vertical section (where the lifting eyes are at) only appears to have a single layer of plywood. I'm not that concerned but I thought it was interesting that AS did not carry the 2 layers of plywood through out the entire transom especially around the lifting eyes on the back of the boat. Dont get me wrong the glass on the outside of the transom is every bit of 3/8 of an inch thick and the inner skin is quite a bit thinner maybe 3/16 of an inch so I doubt that strength would ever be an issue. I will post pics tomorrow of my progress. Today was just a mess. It looked like I had mulched the back of the boat. By the way the chainsaw made short work of the soft stuff!  More to follow still having fun!!!!!!!!!!!

[billsaquasport]

Sorry for the delay in getting these pictures up. I wish I would have taken more pictures but I hope these will give you some Idea of how I did the Arjay pour on my transom.

First of all the idea of using a chainsaw to clean out the transom may work good for the fist foot or so of depth but I would reccomend removing the back of the transom to gain access to entire area. On this particular picture Aquasport actually added in a recess that went into the splashwell are and added an extra piece of wood for reinforcement. I removed the glass and wood which increased the thickness of the transom to almost 2.75 inches right where the engine bolted up. Not a great picture but you can imagine trying to get to these type of spots with a saw or drill from the top is impossible. Also I assured that I patched any holes small or big to keep the Arjay from leaking out. I will get into the actual pour later.

[billsaquasport]

I thought this was kind of a strange design and I will do my best to explain. Aquasport used 2 pieces of plywood for the transom but only the piece closest to the rear of the boat continued up the vertical sections of the transom where the lifting eyes would be. If you notice in the picture I added a piece of glass to this section so it would be equal in thickness all the way across. You can see how the original glass actually is cut down from the splashwell to the bottom of the boat. This is where they ended the 2 sheets of plywood and only ran the single sheet up verrtical sections. Im sure this dosent make since but hopefully you can see what Im talking about. I wanted the transom to be minimum 2 inches this so I had to put in these false walls for the Arjay.

[billsaquasport]

Well I did a bunch of work between the last picture and this one I will do my best to try and remember. First of all if you ever do this insure that you have all the holes glassed in before you put the back on the boat. The reason is the Arjay is thin. Thinner than I thought it would be. I would guess it is just thicker than really good house paint. It will find any small crack or hole and leak into your bilge area. While I had the back off made sure I had every hole plugged, taped, glassed, or Cabosiled. Then I started installing the back glass back on. I held it in place with the wood blocks then stiched it with mat. After that I used 1/2 inch dowel rods and lined up the engine mounting holes and glued them in with epoxy and cabosil. This helped in two ways it assured I had the alignment proper and also I could drill out just the dowels after the Arjay was installed instead of trying to relocate the original engine mounting holes.

[billsaquasport]

Here is what the pour looked like after I took off the dam I built to bring the top of the transom to the proper heighth. I poured it to be flush with the bottom of the origial top cap that I left in place on either side of the splashwell. My transom cap was around 3/8 or an inch thick so I left the Arjay 3/8 lower than the top so I could build it up with 1708 and tie into original top cap corners I left in place. It took about 5 layers of 1708 to bring it right below flush and then 3 more layers to tie in the sides. This gave me just over 1/2 inches of glass at the top of the transom. Also I forgot to mention the Arjay sands like a dream. You can see in the one picture where I matched the radius of the exsisting top cap.

[billsaquasport]

Well here is the start of the finish work. Epoxy, Cabosil, and Microballons were used for fairing. Tons of sanding at this point because it appears that Im not the best glass man in the world but I feel confident that this will last for the life of the boat. After all the sanding I primed and painted. Not much more that I need to say. Took 3 full weekends sun up to sun down and several weekday evenings. Not a hard project and well worth it. I had just under a grand in the entire transom. If I had to do it over I would start right away by removing the back of the transom and skip the whole chainsaw thing this would have saved at least 2 days. Buy plenty of beer and get a cover to work under. The rest is just fibereglass dust and epoxy.

[Capt. Bob]

Oh yea!
That's the way you do it.

PS... The one piece ply was the same on my 222CCP.

[RickK]

Did you pour only the lower portion of the transom?  Does the pour go from side to side of the hull?  What did you do up the sides where the lifting eyes are?