I need to pull the Sundeck on my '05 Rage. The Dirtbag that sold it to me must have used some non-stainless staples to tack down some loose upholstery. I can't come up with any other reason why I would have a rust trail coming down to the grab rail. Nobody's had this problem from the factory right?

So what do I need to know before I start this little project?

Any ideas on how to get the rust stains off the fiberglass?

I have the same problem with my 07 rage. I try to stay on top of it cleaning the run off, But if it sets in a magic eraser works great. I use it all around , the rub rail, fiberglass and upholstery. Works great and fairly effortless.

So you're saying you have the same run off from the Sun Deck? Does that mean that our boats came stock with something that causes this problem? I have a hard time believing that Nordic sent boats out like this.

I spoke with Mike at Nordic yesterday and he assured me that they would not have sent boats out like this.

So does anyone have an opinion on whether I should take the sundeck completely off or just try to remove the upholstery and wood portion from the fiberglass shell?

Thanks.

On my 2000 Heat, I took the engine cover off to have it recovered. there are 2 pieces of plywood used. one that is completely fiber-glassed and is gel-coated white on the bottom. the other is a sheet of plywood that the vinyl is stapled to. what i discovered was that the stainless philips screws that sandwich the gel coated fiberglass side to the wood base for the vinyl are screwed into T-Nuts that NOT stainless. T-Nuts were very rusty and the wood on mine was all rotted around the areas where they were installed. the issue here is that there is no where for the water to go once it soaks through the vinyl and into the padding... i had my cover off and in my garage for a couple months before i took it to my upholstery guy. the foam was still very saturated when he pulled it apart.

i replaced the wood that the pad sits on and vinyl staples to. that was fun... it's a compound angle on a curve that flows w/ the curve of the wrap around rear bench seat. I was under the impression that you could not get T-Nuts in stainless so i just picked up some zinc plated ones similar to what Nordic used from Lowes. of course, after the project was finished, i found some online that were stainless. http://www.boltdepot.com/t-nuts.aspx the existing stainless screws are 1/4 - 20

taking the engine cover off entirely is not that big of a deal on the heat... remove the linear actuator bolt, and then there are a couple of cotter pins that need to be removed on the hinge side so you can slide the stainless pins out. be prepared tho... it's heavy, and awkward.