I have an early-1970's sunfish, and the rub rail has started pulling away from the boat. It hasn't completely detached. The problem is mostly the the starboard side of the seam on the back of the boat. My boat has had a slow leak on the water when in a nice high wind, and I am concerned that the leak might be coming from beneath the rub rail. Are there any options available that involve completely removing the rub rail (i.e., taking it off and finishing the junction of hull and deck in another manner)? Or is it better to try resealing and/or replacing the entire rub rail?
Rub Rail Replacement
- Thread starter mlerman92
- Start date
I strongly suggest that you first do a leak test to see if your suspicion holds ground.
In case the area does leak, it should be relatively easy to fix. One can take off the rubrail section that covers the leak, fix the leak and re-install the rub rail.
Alan Glos
Active Member
The joint between the deck and the topsides of the hull is a common leak area especially if the boat has had some traumatic encounters at the joint area. Removing the aluminum trim is actually pretty easy. Get a 1/8" drill bit and gently drill through each pop rivet from top down taking care not to drill all the way through the bottom of the trim. Clean out any of the aluminum debris from each hole and the tap the trim off with a small hammer and blunt tip screw driver. Clean the joint area and inspect visually for any obvious leaks and/or delaminated areas. Then do the aforementioned leak test with air gently pumped in and soapy water (see "Leak test" on the Forum knowledge base.) Repair any leaks with Marine Tex or thickened epoxy. Let cure and sand as needed. Then reattach the trim and secure with new pop rivets.
Alan Glos
Cazenovia, NY
Alan Glos
Cazenovia, NY
Ditto what Alan said, esp part about not drilling all the way through the trim. It is a fun repair.
"Mlerman"
I drilled out the rivets, pried off the rub rail, and found the entire seam was "filled" with a silicone sealant. I'm in the middle of the tedious process of scraping all this out and will rebond it with adhesive. Fun does not begin to describe this, unless we're talking about the fun of it finally being finished and being able to get to painting.
If you pull your rail off you soon see that "sealing" is not an option and there is no shortcut to fastening the top and hull properly with adhesive. The rail fits tight around this joint so I can't imagine there would be room to lay fiberglass over it as I have seen written up elsewhere.
All good advice from previous replys above - Good luck!
Seems like we are in the same boat. I have a '78 that I thought was patched up sufficiently to proceed to painting. The cockpit area was covered with tarp and all openings were taped, yet water still appeared in the hull after a rain. I finally got the shop vac out and did a leak test and almost the entire perimeter was producing excellent soap bubbles. The boat interior was filling with (lots of) water that stood on the deck and seeped in at the seam.
I drilled out the rivets, pried off the rub rail, and found the entire seam was "filled" with a silicone sealant. I'm in the middle of the tedious process of scraping all this out and will rebond it with adhesive. Fun does not begin to describe this, unless we're talking about the fun of it finally being finished and being able to get to painting.
If you pull your rail off you soon see that "sealing" is not an option and there is no shortcut to fastening the top and hull properly with adhesive. The rail fits tight around this joint so I can't imagine there would be room to lay fiberglass over it as I have seen written up elsewhere.
All good advice from previous replys above - Good luck!
beldar boathead
Married to Primat Boathead
What a nasty surprise! You have to wonder about someone thinking you could hold a boat together with silicone! I have read that 5200 will do the trick on a Laser, but I don't want to be the one to try it. The only way you might be able to speed up your "fun" is to rent a grinding tool somethign like this http://www.toolbarn.com/eagle-5104-e.html and using a reinforced grinding disk, clear out the silicone and clean up the "lips" of the deck and hull to get clean bonding surface. But such a grinding disk might removed too much fiberglass along with the silicone. BB
Update: Thanks for the tips about the grinder approach. Since the seam was in such poor shape, it was possible to get the seam apart with a sharpened putty knife. Some of the sealant/adhesive could be stripped away manually. A dremel tool with a wire brush attachment was very effective at removing the leftover material. Unfortunately, the wire brushes are not happy about this and erode severely after a few feet of goo removal.
I am suspicious that the silicone material bonding the halves together was the aforementioned 5200 or a close relative. It was bonded well in some places and loose in others. The rotten areas contained some nasty black and green mold. I don't know the history of when the last repair was made. This boat has been ridden hard and put away wet. There is even a major hole in the cockpit where it looks like someone stuck their foot through the wall.
Looking through this site (and referring to Alan's post above) the repair approach will be to use thickened epoxy. West systems 105 epoxy, 206 hardener and 406 filler. I thought this could happen today, but the temperature here in the Chicago area did not get above the minimum 60 degrees for the hardener.
Some may wonder why bother to repair this boat, but it will be rewarding to get this junker back in good shape, and to see how long it will last.
Rob C.
Member
I am pretty sure 3M 5200 will hold a Laser or a Sunfish hull and deck together. At the boat yard where I worked as a teen someone brought in a power boat with a blown OMC Sea Drive on it that needed replacing. That thing was bedded with 5200 and we removed all of the bolts and the 5200 was still holding the Sea Drive on. We thought we never would get that thing off. We finally had to pry the thing loose with a wrecking bar to get it off and had to repair the transom because the 5200 was stuck so tight it ripped some of the fiberglass off the transom.