Probably not as nasty as some jobs, as the inside skin should come off as a
complete section. A thin blade on an angle grinder and you are only cutting
a 1/8-3/16" inch wide cut. There will be fiberglass dust, but use a mask
and long sleeve outfit and do it outside. Then just scrape the old wood
out. Never did a transom, but a buddies floor in an older Reinell. And
owned a fiberglass race car, so gots lots of experience on repairing
fiberglass.

"jamesgangnc" wrote in message
news
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.