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Exciter with rotten stringers.

G

gerritvaniperen

Member
Hey everyone.
So I purchased this exciter last fall. Everything seems supper strong, there are no stress cracks in the fibreglass on the transom and the floor is rock solid. However... It looks like at some point some one cut the knees down to fit the fuel tank in. When they did this, they also dinged the stringers and I looks like they may have penitrated the fibreglass on the balsa as well. :brickwall: they didn't bother to seal it:brickwall: and now I have rot:brickwall::brickwall:
So... I'd really like to keep this hull and I know several of you have done great repair jobs on much bigger projects. I, on the other hand have never worked with glass before and am a little anxious about getting started on this.

I have no reason to believe that the exciter has more rot then what's locoized to the area around the knees. So is it possible for be to replace a portion of the stringers? Or would this compromise to much of the strength of the hull. My thought process is that the boat is an 88. That's had a 400+ lbs motor on it all its life. And I'm assuming that the knees were cut when it was new, because, from what I can see scrolling through the pictures on this site, the fuel tank looks original. If it can last that long with no stress cracks, perhaps I can glass a portion on new stringer in really really well and make it work???:o I don't plan on putting the new 400r on it. Not even a 250. Maybe a real clean 175.
This could all be a long shot. But I'm trusting the opinion of the pros that have done this all before.
Ps. I can't get my pictures to work anymore. Every time I hit the little "scenery button" my computer crashes.
 
Thanks for the links!
I'm about 90 percent sure that my stringers go from just behind the ski locker to the transom. There is a cross piece there, and the ski locker is narrower then the fuel tanks area. Can anyone confirm this, either way. It seems like a good spot to do a tie in.
 
Ok, so this is where I'm at, I've built a motor stand, I plan on removing it before I start cutting into the knees and stringers. I borrowing a motor hoist hopefully this weekend to do that. This way I can also take a good look at the transom, not that I'm that worried about it. Then I'm going to remove the old stringers and knees.
I've never done this before, so anyone please jump in to keep me on the right track.
I've got a place that sells marine plywood, once I know how much I need I'll buy some. I also talked to US composite to see if they will ship to Canada. I'm not sure where else to get fibreglass and epoxy resin. I will keep looking for a place local that sells the same stuff, because from what I've read in the "epoxy resin" thread, they sell great stuff, and I don't want to cut corners with that. I know this project might seem like small potatoes to some of you, ;) but Im shaking just a little. I don't want to do more damage then good. Hopefully I can have it all pieced together before my August vacation!
 
Just a word of encouragement. She's an absolutely beautiful looking boat. When you're done with your repairs, which you are definitely going about doing the right way, she'll be stronger then when she was brand new. Please remember to post some pics as you do the work. Best wishes on your project.:thumb: Jim
 
The order of the pictures is kinda messed up, but all of them are of the knees. you can see the one I ground out, and the rot in the stringer. The other one is how i found it. You can see the cut mark in the stringer where they cut the knees down. I have no idea why they did that, I guess it really doesn't matter at this point. :)

image.jpg2_zps6asyaayu.jpg

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As of right now, I have the motor off and a bag full of grinding disks. I looked in the bolt holes through the transom and saw fresh wood, not rot. :thumb: My plan is to cut the floor from the back of the transom to the ski locker. I would rather not remove the flotation boxes, so I would like to cut right down the middle between them and the stringers. Some how I need to reinforce the floor from underneath later. I was thinking, once the new stringers are in I would glass some smaller cross 'joists', partially under the old floor and supporting the new floor. All of this is pending I don't find any more rot. Any thoughts?
I also would like to make the stringers and knees out of one continuous piece. Hopefully that's not to ambitious for a first timer.
 
There is a place in ETOBICOKE that has everything you need I think it is called Noah"s fiberglass on six point road. These guys are also full of knowledge of what products to use
 
gerritvaniperen said:
As of right now, I have the motor off and a bag full of grinding disks. I looked in the bolt holes through the transom and saw fresh wood, not rot. :thumb: My plan is to cut the floor from the back of the transom to the ski locker. I would rather not remove the flotation boxes, so I would like to cut right down the middle between them and the stringers. Some how I need to reinforce the floor from underneath later. I was thinking, once the new stringers are in I would glass some smaller cross 'joists', partially under the old floor and supporting the new floor. All of this is pending I don't find any more rot. Any thoughts?
I also would like to make the stringers and knees out of one continuous piece. Hopefully that's not to ambitious for a first timer.
Click to expand...

Not sure on your vintage boat, but the in '90's boats the floatations boxes have been a main point of water intrusion/rot.
 
ianz said:
There is a place in ETOBICOKE that has everything you need I think it is called Noah"s fiberglass on six point road. These guys are also full of knowledge of what products to use
Click to expand...

Thanks for that. Not having any background knowledge if the topic makes it tricky on who to trust. So a reference for a ON dealer is appreciated!
 
I'd remove and rebuild those floatation boxes, as JW said lots of water gets in them. Both of mine in the Pulse 170 was water logged. How's the floor look toward the front?
 
Rob B said:
I'd remove and rebuild those floatation boxes, as JW said lots of water gets in them. Both of mine in the Pulse 170 was water logged. How's the floor look toward the front?
Click to expand...

I started cuttin into it on Saturday, and I don't think it looks too bad. I cut the stringers back till I found solid wood. It was about ~6in back from the transome. I did check the boxes as best I could and, from what I can tell they are dry. There was a small section of rotten floor at the back where they removed the old VRO tank and did nt seal the holes. So I cut that out, the foam under the floor was bone dry. I pulled the carpet back to the ski locker and the floor all looked salmon pink. I also was able to see a small section of the transome where I ground out the stringers and it also looked good. I'm fairly confident with the transome at this point. There is not a single stress crack anywhere on it. Hopefully as I grind out the tabbing it it stays looking good.
 
Hopefully you have caught it all...

http://screencast.com/t/HpRdVokQ

http://screencast.com/t/hdfal3l1Q

When I started my project I thought the rot was isolated to a few spots
in the floor. Turns out once I stared pulling things back the worse things
got just as Rob B states. In my case it turns out one of my stringers
was rotten to the knee- The other was only partially bad. The knees and transom were solid.

What we did was graft in a new portion of the stringer that was still partially good after removing the bad- Then we created an additional stringer and bound it to that repaired stringer - The guy who did this builds performance boats and said this would be the best way to do it.

In the process we removed the floor all the way up tore out the foam
and built these new double stringers and extended them up the hull 3-4 feet past the original and then he boxed these in with an additional bulkhead as well. He then bonded these new stringers onto the knees.

The guy that did this mentioned that stringer tabbing needs to be done carefully you don't want to create new stress points in the hull. The downside to this is that I lost ~1 inch of gas tank space in the hull - I did not have the original gas tank so I had to build a new one anyway. But the stringer system and floor of my boat is now a lot stouter than it was
in 1989. Hope this helps
HpRdVokQ

hdfal3l1Q
 
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