Rubrail replacement project/questions.
 

Yeah well I do things every year to the old lad to keep it up...this year its the dash and the rubrail.....couple of questions on this.....

Heres a pic with the old rubrail removed....every place there is a piece of black elect tape there was a rubrail screw.....what are all the other holes??????......you can see my pocket screw driver pushes right in without resistance at all these holes were not sealed.....there is approx 200 of these holes all around the boat....anyone know what these are for???....I am 99% sure the rubrail is the original black piece.....I think I will countersink all of these a bit and fill them with 5200....I wash the thing all the time...no wonder it always seems damp

you can see the deck is screwed and riveted to the hull......good solid method!

Heres around back still lots of unsealed holes......every place theres tape and a marker thats where a rubrail screw was......

cuttin back on the weight :lolhit:

These shots are looking up at the swim platform/hull joint.....you can see what Jerry/US1 has been talking about all these years.....you can see the sealant has shrunk and in some places completly exposed the hull deck joint....along with the other unsealed holes its no wonder there is always water in my bilge...almost every time I come off plane water washes over the rubrail and swim platform.....I'll clean it all out and more 5200.

Got me, unless the rubrail isn't original and those are the old holes.

I agree, fill those holes up with 5200. Also might hit the rubrail screws as you put it back on just to make sure they are sealed good.

Not sure on what rubrail you will go with but the advice I got was dont do it in the middle of winter... The seams do shrink & expand depending on ambient temperature. It was suggested to do in 70+ degrees...
2cents
Jr,

doesnt appear to be an old rubrail, in lots of places there is two holes right beside each other......one guy suggested theyre holes so they could pull the boat out of the mold....

yeah I know thats why I want to get at it.....at this time of year I can put the heat on and get the temp up in the shop to 70 plus for a few days.....

Could the deck been taken off and they just drilled new holes to rivet? Or the first holes drilled were not low enough to grab enough of the hull? Just throwing ideas out. As US1 said probably old rub rail holes.

my 07 has a lot of mystery holes under the rr.

Why not just fill the holes with fiberglass resin. Then you can put in new holes where ever you want.

just curious, what year and length is your fountain

Right below my screen name......:drink:

Those Are Fun Boats. Put Some Big Power In It & It Becomes A Rocket.

Reggie,
Reread the original post.

I Did, I Know He Was Askn About The Rubrail. I Was Making A Statement.

I love my 29 and I have the 502s that are supercharged. The boat is great fun and accelerates great.
As for water in the bildge, I do not get it coming in through the rubrail. Most of the the time mine gets in there from people getting in and out of the boat from the water being wet and walking into the cockpit. It is very minimal and not ever enough for the bilge pumps to pick it up.

What's Your 29 Run? I Would Think In The 90 Mph Range.

Update - after walking around and around the boat I picked up a pattern with all the holes.....

as I said earlier in many places there are two holes right beside each other.....this side by side pattern is spaced evenly to the next side by side set all the way around the boat.....this appears to be the original rubrail holes then another identical rubrail placed just off the original placement.....

next are the holes from the rubrail I just took off (which is the same Taco model as Im putting on except this new one is white where the old one was black) its holes are spaced completly different than the side by sides....in a couple of spots the side by sides and holes from the last one all end up being in the same spot but the spacing is correct......so this will be the fourth rubrail the thing has had on it.....faaaack me!.....I just roll with the punches man.....:)

Reggie, It will run 85-86 GPS with the boat fully loaded and full of fuel. I have never run it without all the gear and low on fuel so I do not know those numbers.The boat weighs about 8500lbs fully geared up (anchor, coolers, all my extra stuff, full tank of gas). I am running the B&M 250 EFI blowers at 3-4 PSI of boost. Right now I can spin either my 30p (5250rpm) or 32P (5000rpm) Bravo 1s. I am going to send my blowers off to be serviced for a rebuild this winter and I am also looking at adding some IMCO -2 shorties. I need to get rid of the stock exhaust to shed a few pounds as well. The engines run great and have been very reliable so I am hesitant to change the setup that much. I would like to get it into the 90s without going up in boost if possible. I talked to Mark at precision Marine and there are not many folks out there that can reprogram my ECUs for the smaller pulley's. I am also leary of running more boost because of the ethanol gas.

You going to have enough glass between all those holes so the hull don't split going dot to dot? :)

should be good....filled all the holes with Marine Tex.....sandable, drillable actually stronger than glass.....will have a clean sheet when Im done.

I had the boat for awhile then kind of tried to copy the 29 twin 377 Scorpion package.....all reports say those things went really well......Im a bit short on HP though.....Im making about 330 hp/side @4800.....the engines are 010 block 355s, bowtie heads, steel cranks.....the cams are very mild.....Id like to change to much hotter cams rev to 55 or 6 and make 425/450

you gave me an excuse to post a pik....:drink::drink:

Very Nice.