You price estimate is probably not bad but it is a real pain in the ass of a
job. Nasty work.

Another alternative is to dry it out and saturate it with thinned epoxy.
Drill rows of downward slanted holes in the transom from the inside in the
problem area. Go sideways each way until you get to solid wood. A hole
every couple inches and a row every couple inches. Park it in a garage for
at least a couple months with fans blowing on it all the time. Over the
whole winter is even better. Then mix batches of epoxy thined with 5-10%
alcohol. Keep filling the lowest row of holes till they won't take any
more. Make several runs at this row allowing it to sit a day or so between
each. Make sure you do not have any leaks at the bottom and if you do you
will need to seal them with unthinned epoxy. You should see that you can
pour lots into the row at first but after a few runs then mixture just sits
in the holes. Then mix an epoxy / filler batch and plug that set of holes.
You can put a piece of masking tape across them to keep the filler in and
flat. Once that drys repeat at the next row of holes above. Takes a few
weeks to do this. Us Composites has decently priced epoxy. Get a gallon.
This is not a professional repair but it's simple. I'd not take it off
shore in foul weather but you're not going to do that in a 19' bayliner
anyway.

"Calif Bill" wrote in message
nk.net...

wrote in message
oups.com...

Hi,

A friend of mine has a 1986 Bayliner Cuddy (19 Ft) outboard that has
transom rot. It appears that water entered at the engine mount
bolts and propagated down to the drain plug. The center (wood part)
of the transom has no structural integrigy and it's only the gelcoat
that's keeping everything together.

We've looked around at repair places and as you can imagine,
it's a pretty expensive fix at the businesses. I'm looking
for a private party that is good at doing this type of work if
one exists in the area. The boat was bought for about $3,500 and
we can't see putting 6-7 grand in to it.

Any pointers to such a person would be appreciated.

Thanks,

barry

Should not be that big of a job as a DIY job. But hiring someone, even at
$25 / hour is going to cost a bunch more money than the boat is worth. If
he is handy at all, should be able to just cut the fiberglass skin with an
angle grinder and remove the inside skin on the transom and cut a piece of
marine ply to fit the transom. some resin and a little glass and the
transom should be whole again. Maybe $300 in parts.