August 31, 2026

Pointer 2

Monday

To improve access to the inside of the transom for hole-filling and eventual rebolting, I chose to install a slightly larger deck plate to replace the 4″ one already in place.  The small hatch barely allowed one’s arm to fit, with no extra room for leverage.  I had on hand a couple candidates to replace the hatch, and ultimately chose a 6″ deck plate as the best fit, though a larger opening would have been optimal.

After removing the old deck plate, I enlarged the hole to fit the new one, and left the opening as is for now, pending the final installation of the outboard bolts, as the raw hole allowed the largest possible access.

Next, I prepared the transom and its multiple holes for repair by cleaning inside and out, removing excess and old sealant and general grime.  I reamed out all the existing holes through the transom to clean old old sealant, and lightly chamfered the exterior sides of the holes to allow for better flush-filling with epoxy.  Then, I masked over the insides of the holes to be filled,  and around the perimeters of the exterior holes to avoid excess epoxy on the gelcoat (even though these holes would be hidden behind the outboard), and filled all the holed with a thickened epoxy mixture, after first wetting out the holes with unthickened epoxy.  Ultimately, I decided also to fill the two uppermost boltholes, which I planned to reuse in the installation, but the port hole was misshapen and I thought it best for a fresh start all around.

Later, when the epoxy had partially cured, I removed the tape from the exterior.

The boat came to me with the outboard controls already attached (wiring harness and control cables), but the control unit was not installed to the boat.  It would have been nice if I could just install the control box against the hull, where there was a molded ledge that accommodated the control nicely, but the slight angle in the area meant that this caused interference between the control and the side of the boat when pushed forward.

This could be easily remedied if I built a narrow angled spacer, which would hold the control vertical and increase clearance of the lever.  From 15mm okoume plywood, I milled an appropriate piece with the slight angle required, nicely increasing clearance for the lever, and fitted things dry with three 1/4″ x 3″ machine screws to check the fit.  Final installation would await delivery of the sealant I’d ordered.

Total time billed on this job today: 2 hours