Check the upper right corner of the transom. Any boats made 1973 and after required HIN's. Pre 1983, the last letter represented the month and the last two numbers the year. After 1983 the last two numbers were the year.
If at all possible just tape off aluminum trim. If you are really wanting to remove, then yes drill out rivet heads. They are shallow rivets so slight pressure to drill out head of rivet. Then you can pop aluminum trim off and pull rest of rivet from underside. I usually use 1/8" dia drill.
yes, it looks like something has been installed on the transom to support the rudder.Something appears odd on the transom. Is there a piece of wood or something fastened on?
Hello from new boat owners in Ontario,
We are now the owners of a very battered old Super Sunfish. The boat did not come with a trailer, so we had to bring it home on the roof racks on the car. It was quit an adventure. Now that it is home, we are in the process of making a PVC dolly to store it on for now, and will look for a used trailer in the spring.
My son is in high school and we have contacted his Auto Body class teacher about taking the boat in to have them repair, sand and paint the hull. I have some questions about removing splash rail, which is riveted on. Do we just drill out the rivets to remove the splash rail? Also the riveted aluminum channel on boat sides of the hull is damaged and has missing sections. Can someone point me to an article on repairing this channel?
Is there a way to date the boat? The previous owner did not have any information on this boat, and the only identification is a dealer’s label which shows it was sold her in Ontario
Thanks for any help you can provide to newbie owners with limited skills.
Looks like a rudder conversion; a somewhat unusual one since there usually is no need for such a backup.Something appears odd on the transom. Is there a piece of wood or something fastened on?
Parts of it are wrinkled"...Looks like a rudder conversion..."
Parts of it are wrinkledand rusting. Whatever it is, it looks flimsy.
Maybe it's covering a nasty hit that took out the original gudgeon plate?Some reverse-engineering is needed there, including a major transom fiberglass do-over, IMO.
yes, we took a look inside the hull and there is a similar grey piece used as a backing plate on the inside. the grey plate is 3/4" thick, but all the nuts and bolts are rusted and not moving. not sure how we are going to remove this to check why it was installed.
I got a chuckle out of "auto body shop class".so we have finally put the repaired sunfish back together. the battered hull was repaired by my son's high school auto body shop class, then then repainted. we are bringing it to a cottage we rented for next week on a small lake to try out.
yes, we could not reach the outermost holes of the coaming, so we used large rivets in these holes. two long Styrofoam blocks seem to be in place, but there is nothing to support the deck in the middle of the boat under the coaming and we are not sure how to get foam blocks in there with only the 6 inch port we installed for access.'Don't know about Super Sunfish, but the outermost bolts of the coaming should be "inaccessible" from underneath due to two long Styrofoam blocks added by the factory to support the deck. If the blocks are still in place, and were compressed by the vandals, I'd suggest cutting two suitable (new) Styrofoam pieces, forcing and gluing the new pieces into place.
Since that area is well above the waterline, you could use a hardware store Great Stuff product to simultaneously hold—and force—them into place. I'd be tempted to scoop out several pockets in the new Styrofoam to help the Great Stuff expand to fill and compress that space.