The Damage Thread

[DonDon]

After what you did to WB and the game warden pics, think this was justice man. Hate it happened but you did landblast WB pretty bad

["G"]

After reading all of this.....my incident with the boat trailer coming off my hitch in my yard and the boat hitting my shop and ramming the skeg and the prop blades through the steel door on my shop is a very minor incident. Yep ES......you are riseing very high in gewberdom.

[Wannabe...]

OK...the good news: It's easily fixable. The bad news....it's gonna cost you $.

Hull - Don't you dare use some sort of epoxy on that hull for a repair. All of it is cheap, all of it will work well (DO NOT EVEN THINK ABOUT JB WELD), but none of it will be a permanent fix and all of it will make a permanent fix almost impossible if not extremely difficult. What you need to do is find a very good aluminum welder and pay him his rate no matter what it is. I'm guessing tops would be $400, but most likely, I'm looking at a $200 job and possibly a $100.....course, with the gewber tax, it might be a tad bit higher.

Skeg - This one is the most problematic. First, and when I say first, I mean when you get home from work TONIGHT! - drain the LU and see if you have any water intrussion with milky looking oil. Chances are, when the boat went down, all it did was lay the skeg over a bit as the boat went down, but the danger is that you've damaged the LU seals and will let water in or damaged the bearings and that would show up as shavings in the magnetic pickup on the LU screw....this is the danger and I'd guess about a 40% probability on water intrustion and 10% probability on the bearings. If you don't see any evidence of water, take it to a mechanic and have 'em pull a vaccum on it to make ding dang sure before it's refilled. At the same time, he can assess whether the skeg can be re-worked to approximate being straight. OK, now the really, really bad news.....it is possible that you rattled that LU hard enough to cause damage to the shaft. This needs to be checked by having it run out for tolerance. This probablilty is like 1%, but you're looking at a total LU rebuild/replace if it's out and this is the sort of thing that may not happen the next time out, it might take months to build to a failure and worse yet, an LU failure like that can cause damage up the motor and lead to some real, real problems - again, that's a 1% likelihood, assuming the shaft is out, but I'd rather see you make sure than run the risk.

OK, so here's what needs to be done....drain the LU yourself and look for water intrussion, assuming none, schedule an appt....assuming some, schedule an emergency appt, if it can't be looked at for anything more than a day or two, refill with good oil and don't use until you can get it looked at. If no water, then it's ok to leave dry.

Have the mechanic pull the LU after assessing whether he can repair the skeg. (more on this below) Have him do a pressure check on the LU and test the shaft for tollerance. While he's got it pulled, have him replace/rebuilt the water pump with a kit...might as well, you've already paid for the tear down at this point and will only add another $40 to the bill and that's cheap piece of mind. Assuming all is well, reassemble and get it to the welder.

OK, the skeg. Skegs are cast aluminum and not easily bent or repaired. It can be done, but only by someone who knows what they're doing. They can be heated to a point (danger of damaging seals) and made more maleable, but that's not something you want a bubba who's always wanted to try one doing. It'd be easy to snap it off, which would then require more work. Worst case - can't be repaired and you're looking at buying a new LU case and moveing your innerds to it...Maybe $400 if you're lucky or you forgo the case (assuming innerds are OK and it sill holds a seal and you use torque tab to overcome what can't be repaird on the skeg).

If I couldn't find somebody I could trust on that LU, I'd be looking for Dean Titus - He's the guru the LU gurus call.

Wannabe...

[Wannabe...]

And one other thing....don't feel bad, this ain't the first time a ship has gone down on her maiden voyage. Only difference is, in this case, nobody got hurt and......I'm pretty sure they're not going to make a movie about you.

Wannabe...

["G"]

Jada two

[C N]

uhhhhhhhhhh howuhcum nobody ain't said nuthin' about his girley truck causin' some part of this FEE-ASS-CO????

[jimfish]

Have had several new skegs welde on no prob. as far as the banged up boat, get a couple tubes of VULKEEM and a putty knife itwont ever leak trust me. WB is a banker what does he know about sheet metal?

[Wannabe...]

I'm tellin' ya, don't put anything on that hull!!!! Mr. Jim is right, any number of products will work for an extremely long time, BUT they will eventually fail and welding on aluminum with contaminants present is going to be next to impossible, forcing a larger area to be welded on....think cutting hole and welding in new metal as opposed to drawing a bead at present. AND that damage appears to be right on the center line of the hull...right where the highest water pressure, flexing and pounding is going to take place - meaning the fixes in a tube are not going to last as long. Do it right!!!!

Agree, skegs can be welded on though, but I'm not worried about the skeg, I'm worried about seals, bearing and shaft.

Wannabe...

[sbcpower]

I've use Vulkem on smaller boats, but I've seen it peel off of bigger faster boats...

[Billbob]

Jada # 2