Hi Philip, congratulations on your new (to you) boat! You have made a great choice, but I am biased! I rebeded the lower gudgeon on my '74 M-17 a while back. Not sure what your cockpit drain set up is but mine was a hose that needed checking/replacing as well. I do not remember it being very difficult and I believe I used 3-M 4200 to rebed the part. I decided that it would be a good idea to have access to that area so I bought and installed an access hatch/inspection port for the back wall of the cockpit so that I could get at that area more easily. This is especially important I thought due to there being a through hull below the water line on my boat in that area. The only tip I could offer is to use a putty knife to separate the part from the transom after unbolting. Sometimes the old bedding material is quite strong and you do not want to bring gel coat with your part if you can help it. And of course always seal the holes going through the transom by over drilling, filling with thickened epoxy, then drilling to the size of the bolt so that the wood in the transom is sealed off from the bolt holes if the bedding leaks. There is another approach that is shown using a bent nail but I personally have not tried it. If you are new to working on boats there is a great book by Don Casey that you could ask for for Christmas that shows a lot of maintenance stuff called This Old Boat. You might go after the scum line with, what is it, Oxolyic acid? It is the active ingredient in products like FSR fiberglass stain remover. That is a good option if rubbing it out does not work. Robbin M-23 '78 The Other Woman M-10 Tonka On 12/6/2010 4:02 PM, PHILIP NOBEL wrote:
Greetings, List!
My girlfriend and I are, as of about a month ago, the very happy new owners of an M-17 (hull #617). Her name is Bird Girl and she's going to be moored in the Hudson at Cold Spring, NY. Also very happy to find this list, since, though she's in good shape generally for a nine year old boat, I've got a few winter projects (refinishing the rudder and tiller) I may need some advice on, as well as a potentially gnarly spring project: replacing one or more of the thru-hull bolts that attach the bottom-most gudgeon.
The previous owner was a good sailor, and I'm adopting from him new furling gear, good sails, and some other nice performance tweaks, but he had the boat in fresh water, with no paint, all last season. That left me a nice scum line to follow when I paint in the spring, but it also I think led to the crevice corrosion on the stainless in that one spot (and one of the bolts on the associated pintle strap, but that looks like an easy fix). One of the gudgeon bolts has lost its head and another shows some rust. The plate itself seems fine and there's no water entering (yet!) behind the broken bolt.
My repair plan as of now consists of sending my nine year old son down under the cockpit to the transom with a camera to see what's happening on the dry side, then we'll take it from there. But until it warms up enough to subject him to that particular torture...have any of you experienced Montgomery sailors made that repair? And if so, any tips for the newbie? I'm hoping it's no more complicated than removing the bolts and rebedding the whole assembly, but what in life is ever that simple?
Hope all's well, and thanks for having me here.
-- Philip
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