A friend of mine asked me to paint the hull sides on his fishing boat. He had already gutted the interior to redo it all over the winter and thought he would get it painted as well. As he was tearing it apart I told him to look at the foam under the floor as it was probably wet and holding water. Sure enough it was so he pulled all of it out. Once he got all his stuff done he brought it to my house and we rolled it off the trailer onto some car dollies. I was prepping the hull to paint and noticed that on the transom there was a lot of pitting and some corrosion. At first I was thinking it was galvanic corrosion because he leaves it in the water at the campground he is at. After some reading on the internet it was either galvanic corrosion or the transom was wet and it was corroding from inside out. After drilling some holes and finding wet wood we determined that it was being caused by the transom. Joe came over as I wanted a second opinion and he agreed as well.
On Sat morning Joe, my friend Dave and myself started by pulling the motor off and disassembling the transom to remove the wood. Wasn't long and the wood from the transom was laying on the ground it weighed 54lbs. after lunch and a Menards run for some supplies and new plywood. We came back cut out a new transom. The aluminum was corroded and pitted pretty bad so we sanded it all down and sprayed it with self etching primer. We put a layer of thinned resin on the wood to to help water proof it then installed it. An additional new layer of aluminum was installed on the outside of the transom. We coated the entire back of the new aluminum with 5200 with and additional bead of 5200 around the edge to seal it up good. Then installed all the screws and original hardware. I will paint it later this week then we can reinstall the engine.
Aluminum boats are way easier to do a transom in. We started at about 9:30 Sat morning and we were finished at about 11pm Sat night. This included a lunch break, Menards trip, and dinner break( I had a pork loin in the smoker while we were working), We also had a few union breaks for a beer or two.
Want to thank Joe for all his help. Although it isn't all self sacrifice as his truck is next in line to come in the garage and get painted.
