New to Board need some help

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norfbay
Posts: 1
Joined: Tue Sep 27, 2022 7:15 am
1

New to Board need some help

#1

Post by norfbay »

Thank you for allowing me to post this in your page.  I have a 19 foot Lowes Roughneck with an aluminum floor.  It developed a leak last year under the floor about where the center console is and I cannot remove the floor to fix the leak.  I thought that I located the leak by removing a section of the center runner and having a guy weld it for me but that seems to have made it worse.  The leak is in between the bottom of the boat and the center runner, somewhere between the front edge of the floor and back edge of the floor.  I think that some sort of epoxy can be poured in through a couple of drill holes in the floor overtop of the center of the boat.  I am looking for ideas, products, anything at this point.  Thank you for you ideas in advance.
kmorin
Donator 08, 09, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24
Posts: 1735
Joined: Mon Aug 18, 2008 1:37 am
15
Location: Kenai, Alaska

Re: New to Board need some help

#2

Post by kmorin »

norfbay,
Welcome to the AAB.com Forum.  I don't know a great deal about riveted hulls- only those I've repaired for 30-40 years but almost always welding near or on a riveted seam with a strip of elastomer as sealant made the problem worse. On the other hand rigid epoxy like castings probably will not solve the problem- but a flexible sealant like 5200 or something like that seems most likely to seal.

The biggest problem you have from your description is access to the site, as near as I read your post?  So, what I'm about to say may not be very welcomed advice?

Using a flexible sealant like 5200 or newer compounds usually implies very good access to apply the calking and before that- to clean the surfaces where the 'goop' will stick to the metal!

So, I'd say, from your post- pull the deck- they rivet or screw back w/out that much work, pull whatever else is in the way of the leak site and get to clean metal, and apply a flowing, flexible-when-hardened, type of calking so the joint can flex as originally designed and retain a seal.

welding usually cooks the sealant strip, makes the area around the weld harder than original and doesn't always seal the area unless you can find a distinct hole to patch in the hull.

Good luck, and thanks for posting.  I'll assume you've found the riveted boat websites, Forums, and boards and have asked them for solutions as well?

Cheers,
Kevin Morin
Kenai, AK

 
kmorin
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