353 step repair in engine bay
 

When I purchased my 353 I noticed that the step in the front of the engine bay was pulled away from the bulkhead. Got a chance to look at it today. There is zero evidence of any rot. I have attached some pictures to show what I am dealing with. What I am thinking is make a wedge to get everything back into alignment then maybe some L brackets on the sides an through bolt everything. Any other ideas?

piks didnt work

trying to visualize wat your doing.... I had a good bit of space infront of my motor, so I laminated 2 pieces of 3/4 together, glassed them then mounted it low between the stringer in front of the motor using big alum L from a skater motor mount. I mounted 2 batteries on the shelf/step and its holding up great.

Could not post from my phone for some reason. They should be showing up now?

The last two pictures show what needs to be made to fill the gap. At its widest point it is 1 1/16" and at the front were it is smaller it is 5/16". It is 8" from the front of that support block to the back.

Is it well bonded/attached on the bottom against the bulkhead? It looks like to much stress/weight caused the shelf to pull away and bracket to roll down under weight? If thats the case though, it should be loose at the bottom also.

The bulkhead looks like it is in place and even when I put my full weight on the bracket it does not move much at all. I can not see any place that anything has moves or dropped or anything. It is kind of a mystery at this point. Everything is solid all the wood is solid and no sign of rot or anything like that. I know something must have moved or this has been like this since it was built? The shims seem to be the best solution and I will put some angle brackets on there and it should be much stronger then new. Originally they just ran two #12 screws down into the bracket. I will through bolt from one bracket on one side to the other bracket on the other and create a sandwich between the two pieces of L bracket.

Ok so I got the step redone. The old one looked horrible. The rubber had shrunk and as you can see was all discolored. I had some aluminum laying around so i cut it up to fit. I router'd out the step a little bit and put the hinge under the aluminum, I think it looks much cleaner. Now after having some time to look at the issue I can see what happened. The problem is that the bulkhead was not properly attached. It looks like they are relying on the spray foam behind the bulk head to keep the bulkhead in place. The foam compressed with the weight that was on the step and the bottom of it pushed forward. It looks like some one tried to do a quick nasty repair. If you look at some of my original pictures you can see newer looking foam coming out some of the bulkhead holes. This is going to be a total pain to get so I can move it back into position. Kind of a bummer the way that they put this together. I am planning this weekend to try and pull the bulkhead back into position some how. I have no idea how. Then I will have to figure out a better way to hold it in place, then fill the back side up again with expanding foam. Wish me luck!
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Oh ya the adhesive that was used to hold the rubber onto the step was some of the nastiest stuff ever! It was easy to pull the rubber up but was super sticky and still kind of a liquid so getting it off took a bunch of cleaner (goof Off).

Send photos when finished...thinking I'll redo mine as well since its in my garage since we removed the motors last June.

Chris

Can you see the picture I posted? I will have some pictures tomorrow of my bulkhead issue related to the step. I just private messaged you some more details. Dave and I are going to exchange some pictures in the next few days. It is great that both your boat and mine are the same exact thing and seem to both be suffering from some of the same issues. Hopefully we can keep one another informed on the ways we go about making them sound again. I am having a hard time figuring out were the bulkhead is supposed to go exactly. Dave is going to get me dimensions off your boat. I will take pictures of what I do so that you can do the same thing if you feel the need. I will say this, when I am done that thing will NOT move any more.

Ok this is the issue that I am looking at trying to resolve. None of this makes any sense to me at all. [ATTACH=CONFIG]552307[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]552308[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]552309[/ATTACH]

The first picture shows that the bulkhead is forward of the bracing. Just looking at that on it's own it looks OK. However look at the next two images and you will see the huge gap cause by the bulkhead being that far forward. It looks like the bottom of the bulkhead needs to come back farther? To get it to come back however, it would need to be lifted up quite a bit. To lift it up then I think that all the holes in the bulkhead would be out of alignment it seems? Does anyone have a photo of this area that they can share?

Thanks
Jon

My neck gets sore looking at these pics. :)

:daz:...

Not half as sore as my neck and wallet are about to be fixing these things!!!! ;-)

I feel your Pain.....:faint2:

OK after dealing with the bottom repair I am back to trying to figure this out. So yesterday I took a few hours at the shop to investigate things. If anyone has the ability to take a photo or check to see if there is foam between the gas tank and bulkhead that would be amazing. I think the previous owner in an attempt to address this issue did some pour foam down between the tank and the bulkhead. Factory construction on this was that they put Plexus down in between this piece of wood and the stringer. Then they some how pulled back on the piece of wood to try and make the bond. On my boat the bond broke. This is not a surprise knowing how much the bottom was probably moving with all the separations of the grid system. So clearly there is supposed to be a good bond on the bottom edge of this piece. The problem is now how can I attach it? I got it freed up so I can move it again from bond with the pour foam. I can now get it back into position almost. I think if I spend some more time cleaning out the pieces of crap that have fallen down in there during the bottom repair I will be good to go.

Option 1 is a healthy dose of 5200 and pull back on the wall as best I can.

Option 2 is call up the Plexus rep and see what he says or has for ideas/products.

I don't want to rely on this one bond to hold everything in place. So I may get some stainless or aluminum angle brackets and drill into the stringers and also into the wood. Then use a product like listed below to see if I can get a stronger hold. There is ZERO access to the back of the bulkhead unless I really take a lot of things apart and make holes perhaps in the battery box areas. Not something I want to do! I was originally thinking about bolting the top of the bulkhead in but in talking with a friend last night he is thinking that area may want to be able to move as the boat flexes and I could cause issues in other places. So I am going to leave that alone I think. I am wondering if they changed this design over the years? If I saw a new one that they bolt things up then I would do the same?

As far as the part that holds up the step that was pushing into the gas tank! I can move that back and into position as well or at least very close. If I fall a little short I am just going to make a wedge. I am going to put angle brackets on either side of the bracket were it meets the bulkhead and through bolt them. The part of the angle bracket that sits up against the bulkhead will have a lot more area of contact that way, so the piece should never be able to push in again. I am also going to if I feel it is needed drop something down from that bracket to the stringer. This is probably overkill but not a huge thing to have to do. My biggest concern is the bonding the bottom of this piece of wood back to the stringer.

http://www.globalindustrial.com/p/fa...FVmBswodXUUKuw

Would you like to send me the prototype of the diamond-plate floor, you may want to make another to fix any imperfections - LOL Looks awesome.

The rest sucks, that Plexus product sucks from the late 90's. Seems to come apart wherever it was used.

Snowrunner. The Plexus products are fantastic when used properly. That is the key! In this case I don't think that a proper bond could ever have been made with ONLY Plexus. Yes it is going to bond to the fiberglass well that is its designed use. The wood it did not hold on at all. I am going to check the product line up to see if they make something that will go between wood and glass but I don't think they do. That is why I am going to look at probably 5200. I know that will give me one hell of a bond. I am then going to make a new template for the bottom of this piece and bond that to the bulkhead that Formula made. This will make the bottom of the bulkhead 1 1/2" thick. I am then going to use a angle bracket and screw into the bulkhead and stringer to hold it all into place. Pictures to hopefully come this weekend if I don't have to work...

Ok had about an hour or two to spend this evening, I cleaned out the area between the surfaces as best I could with Acetone and rags. I opted to go with the 5200 slow cure for this repair. This picture shows the gap that I had. That gap is not supposed to be there. The entire wood section of the bulkhead was moving free.

This first picture is the system that I came up with to pull the bulkhead back into place. I had to pull it up as well as back. It worked very well. Was able to close the gap down to about 1/16 of an inch from the factory location maybe even closer. I was having a ***** of a time getting it to close up all the way when I was dry running the process. When I started to clean out the space between I found some wire ties in there that were keeping it away. Got them out and all was good.

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The next photos show the look after the 5200 had been pushed in and clamped. I used a puddy knife to smooth out the 5200 now so it was out of my way for the next step.[ATTACH=CONFIG]566473[/ATTACH]

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Jon

Why does there seem to be so much mold or stuff in the bilge? I can expect dirt and oil.....but looks like there was a lot of moisture?

No mold just dirty

I have to wait 7 days for the 5200 to do a full cure then I will be able to start on the next step. I am going to build up the wood on the bottom with more plywood and bond it with either epoxy or 5200 so that it is thicker. Then I am going to use a piece of angle stock into the wood and the stringer with screws so that this should be MUCH stronger when done. If i was doing it at the factory I would have put blind nuts in the back side and all you would need was the angle stock. I don't have any access back there now so this is the best I could come up with.

Got a little more done today. After everything cured I finally had some time to get the brackets that I made installed. Well two of the 4 anyhow. There is one of these brackets on either side of the center. I held them in place with !/4 20 cap screws into the stringers and #12 screws into the bulkhead. I also used some 5200 for what I hope is a totally permanent fix.