Transom Repair

[Raab]

What do you have for an engine and outdrive?

Its a merc 140hp 3.0 motor and as for outdrive not to sure. I try and upload pictures but always says file to large.

 

[Raab]

What do you have for an engine and outdrive?

Its a merc 140hp 3.0 motor and as for outdrive not to sure.

Take a lot of pics and post your progress. There are some very skilled and experienced peopl eon this site who can give you great advice and the rest if us like to watch your progress. Good luck with your project. Cheers, Fin.

The people on this online forum are awesome. Every one makes very good valid points and a lot seem like they dont want others to deal with things they have dealt with in the past. I just gotta figure out how to post pics. Always says file to large

 

[Raab]

Since you have decided to proceed. You may wish to consider:

Determining the condition of the motor and the drive. If they are original, they are ancient by boat standards. Just because the motor runs does not tell you much. A boat motor can spend a lot of time at high rpm compared to your average car. Can you get parts especially for the leg? As you are a mechanic this should be right in your wheel house. I would want to be sure that I will not be putting a lot of money and sweat equity into the hull and then find I have expensive/reliability problems in the motor and/or drive. Some parts for the motor must be marine rated, (spark suppression etc.) so you do not blow up the boat if there are gas fumes in the bilge. Some auto motor parts will work but are not safe or intended for boat use. Is the bilge power vent system working? Boats in the ocean are not like cars. A very reliable motor and drive can be the difference between life and death. With a $500. car and iffy motor/drive train, you just pull over and call the auto club. You will also need a reliable kicker. I have had to come in on the kicker a couple of times over a lifetime and was glad to have it. An 18 footer is rather large to paddle in current, wind and waves.

Do some research on your boats construction. Even some older boats have all glass stringers for example. If the stringers are glass and good or wood and good and the deck is glass or glass over wood and good, I am not sure I would be cutting out the whole deck and may just work on the transom. Very good chance however, that it is all wood and bad and you will need to remove the whole deck and everything rotted out under it.

Pull the drive and motor and remove the transom seal and check the edge around the seal. Drill some test holes in the transom from the inside but do not drill into/through the outside glass. Look for water or punky wood in the drill bit. This should tell you the extent of the water/rot damage in the transom. You could do the same with the stringers that the motor mounts attach to if they are wood. You could also drill through the deck for an inspection camera, especially where the stringers attach to the transom. Alternatively you could cut inspection ports which are more destructive but will tell you a lot more. If the deck is glass over wood a large man can tell a fair bit by jumping/walking around on it. Does it move, is it spongy? One of my buddies once unintentionally tested my glass over wood deck by dropping a 20lb lead ball on it from 4 feet up. Luckily, all it did was bounce, did not even crack/mark the glass coating.

Up to this point you will not have spent a dime or all that much time, but you will have much more information.

I really like what you have suggested to be honest this is probably the best way to go about this project right now. I have found another sangster with better hull so i was thinking buying that and throwing a motor in it and call it a day

 

[Raab]

Im currently redoing the transom on my 22 foot sangster, almost done. Out came the 302 and leg, replaced the plywood, glasssed over the hole (outboard going on).
About to start building the pod from aluminum this week hopfully.
My advise in short would be get lots of resin, im nearing my 5th 5l of resin&hardner. And probaly see another 2 more jugs.
A fiberglass roller does wounders for mushing out air from the fiberglass..
If you use west systems epoxy get the pumps for it... makes mixing easy... pumps are sized different so one pump of resin is the right ratio for a pump of hardner

So when are you going to come by and start working on mine ahah. You guys are awesome

 

[Raab]

I made the switch from inboard to outboard on a pod because you free up all that square footage that the motor and doghouse take up...and that seized up Volvo-Penta motor and outdrive was way too expensive to rebuild. I don't know if you noticed from the photos, but I also changed out the side windows from the "camper -style" to regular angled windows. That gave me about three feet more of free gunnel space on each side to play fish from. These are all considerations that you're going to be faced with, so plan out what you want to end up with... a comfy family cruiser, or a serious fish killing machine. Cheers - and good luck

Well i wanna go fishing and also pull a tube or waterski. So putting an outboard would kinda ruin the opportunity to go tubing or waterski. 80% it will be just fishing and cruising. I am kinda leaning towards outboard after seeing your pics.

 

[Raab]

I'm a mechanic as well and many of my "projects" have been due to the lack of disposable income and ability to learn.
I'm going to guess it has a Ford 302 engine and Merc alpha 1 outdrive, not bad pulling that combo apart compared to a Seized together Volvo. Yeah it's dirty, and materials not that expensive if you use polyester resin.

Going with an outboard and podding it raises the bar as far as expenditure however gives you more floor space in the boat as the biggest benefit on a budget build. Original Engine and outdrive condition would be the deciding factor as well as same regarding outboard price and condition, price of building a pod or having one built etc.

Research exhaust manifolds and risers, cooling systems, fuel tanks and so on.

If the original drive train is decent just fix the wood and go boating!

It has a merc 140hp motor with some merc outdrive. Would going outboard effict the way the boat sits in the water ? And will i save money that way?

 

[ericl]

If this is your first boat I'd go with the least amount of work then see what you like/dislike about it. You should be concerned about resale value on a boat that small as it is highly likely you will want to upsize.
In general replacing an I/O with a O/B will raise the stern outta the water & improve ride/performance. I gained 10mph doing that on a 24ft SeaRay.

 

[Viking]

To post pics email them to yourself and resize them smaller. Hope that helps.

 

[Viking]

Its a merc 140hp 3.0 motor and as for outdrive not to sure. I try and upload pictures but always says file to large.

 

[Wild Bill]

Will you save money? Lol! A new 150 hp outboard is somewhere around $13000? A used one... I have seen them for $200 but there is a reason! Again some of them are quite nice to rebuild if it's not horribly corroded, parts can be expensive, I have only done fresh water engines. Depending on outboard engine vintage you could get much better fuel economy. Parts for that 4 cylinder have to be getting a little scarce as well as used serviceable legs in that ratio, I have seen obscure raw water pumps in the $1700 range, that's when you need to use a little ingenuity regarding what else you could use. As far as towing tubes and skiers I have never had a sterndrive with that small an engine as yours on that big of a boat, I would think an outboard would outpull it.
Can you fabricate and weld aluminum? I made my pod out of fiberglass, wouldn't recommend it! Lol!

 

[Raab]

Will you save money? Lol! A new 150 hp outboard is somewhere around $13000? A used one... I have seen them for $200 but there is a reason! Again some of them are quite nice to rebuild if it's not horribly corroded, parts can be expensive, I have only done fresh water engines. Depending on outboard engine vintage you could get much better fuel economy. Parts for that 4 cylinder have to be getting a little scarce as well as used serviceable legs in that ratio, I have seen obscure raw water pumps in the $1700 range, that's when you need to use a little ingenuity regarding what else you could use. As far as towing tubes and skiers I have never had a sterndrive with that small an engine as yours on that big of a boat, I would think an outboard would outpull it.
Can you fabricate and weld aluminum? I made my pod out of fiberglass, wouldn't recommend it! Lol!

Lol yeah ok 13000 is out out of the picture. I just gutted out the whole interior and removed the floors. The boat is garbage needs a complete rebuild. Someone pervious tried to repair and screwed right into the fuel tank. There goes 500 i paid for it. Where can i throw away a boat?

 

[Raab]

Since you have decided to proceed. You may wish to consider:

Determining the condition of the motor and the drive. If they are original, they are ancient by boat standards. Just because the motor runs does not tell you much. A boat motor can spend a lot of time at high rpm compared to your average car. Can you get parts especially for the leg? As you are a mechanic this should be right in your wheel house. I would want to be sure that I will not be putting a lot of money and sweat equity into the hull and then find I have expensive/reliability problems in the motor and/or drive. Some parts for the motor must be marine rated, (spark suppression etc.) so you do not blow up the boat if there are gas fumes in the bilge. Some auto motor parts will work but are not safe or intended for boat use. Is the bilge power vent system working? Boats in the ocean are not like cars. A very reliable motor and drive can be the difference between life and death. With a $500. car and iffy motor/drive train, you just pull over and call the auto club. You will also need a reliable kicker. I have had to come in on the kicker a couple of times over a lifetime and was glad to have it. An 18 footer is rather large to paddle in current, wind and waves.

Do some research on your boats construction. Even some older boats have all glass stringers for example. If the stringers are glass and good or wood and good and the deck is glass or glass over wood and good, I am not sure I would be cutting out the whole deck and may just work on the transom. Very good chance however, that it is all wood and bad and you will need to remove the whole deck and everything rotted out under it.

Pull the drive and motor and remove the transom seal and check the edge around the seal. Drill some test holes in the transom from the inside but do not drill into/through the outside glass. Look for water or punky wood in the drill bit. This should tell you the extent of the water/rot damage in the transom. You could do the same with the stringers that the motor mounts attach to if they are wood. You could also drill through the deck for an inspection camera, especially where the stringers attach to the transom. Alternatively you could cut inspection ports which are more destructive but will tell you a lot more. If the deck is glass over wood a large man can tell a fair bit by jumping/walking around on it. Does it move, is it spongy? One of my buddies once unintentionally tested my glass over wood deck by dropping a 20lb lead ball on it from 4 feet up. Luckily, all it did was bounce, did not even crack/mark the glass coating.

Up to this point you will not have spent a dime or all that much time, but you will have much more information.

What do you like 1,000,000 to repair all this?
This is just wayyyy to much work and i wouldn't even know where to start

 

[Viking]

Omg take it out to sea and pull the plug if you have to. Sorry man. Take it to the landfill. Don't waste your hard earned money and time.

 

[Raab]

Omg take it out to sea and pull the plug if you have to. Sorry man. Take it to the landfill. Don't waste your hard earned money and time.

Well it was my first impluse buy so really my fault for not looking at what needs to be done. On the other hand I found another sangster exact year and size this one needs motor and a leg. And i took pictures of what it needs

 

[Raab]

If this is your first boat I'd go with the least amount of work then see what you like/dislike about it. You should be concerned about resale value on a boat that small as it is highly likely you will want to upsize.
In general replacing an I/O with a O/B will raise the stern outta the water & improve ride/performance. I gained 10mph doing that on a 24ft SeaRay.

 

[Raab]

View attachment 38295 View attachment 38294 Yeah - it took me eight years, but I only worked on it when I had the time - and could afford to buy the materials and the parts. So, no loans from the bank, bought and paid for one bit at a time.

This is gonna take about 10 years to fix lol

 

[brutus]

nasty,now you no what most old boats are like.REally hard to find old boats that are structurally sound,been working with wood for 30 plus years and I can smell a rotten boat,to me its a tell tell sign to stay away or to anticipate a lot of work.500$ is nothing when it comes to boats

 

[brutus]

This is gonna take about 10 years to fix lol

lmfao

 

[Fixit]

What’s that saying about giving a free project boat to your worst enemy?
Looks like it was a good thing to walk away from. 500$ is a pretty cheap boat lesson learned

 

[Raab]

What’s that saying about giving a free project boat to your worst enemy?
Looks like it was a good thing to walk away from. 500$ is a pretty cheap boat lesson learned

Now where can i throw a boat away?