R25 Keel plate bolt missing, water seeping 10+ days

[Kurt]

Keel plate bolt missing, water seeping 10+ days
R25 2008, has stainless steel plate on rear bottom of keel. This is affixed with bolts. To what are these bolts affixed in the hull? My problem is that one has fallen out and 10 days later I’m still dripping saltwater onto the driveway. How is it that the hull has become saturated unless this bolt hole is allowing water to reach the foam core. (I'm assuming there is a foam core in this area due to volume and duration of water seepage).

What should be done?
Thanks
Kurt

 

[Andrew Custis]

Hello Kurt,

On that section of the boat, the screws / lag bolts go into two different sections of the boat. There is a putty line coming up from the bottom which separates the "keel extension" from the boat. The keel extension is used to line up the propeller shaft to the engine.

The construction of that area consists of brass, wood and fiberglass. If the bolt that is missing is into the keel extension instead of the boat, there is some wood in the keel extension that is used for "filler." You should let it dry out and then fix and replace the missing bolt and make sure its sealed well.

If the bolt is ahead (forward) of the keel extension, the bolt goes into a layer of glass then brass and then glass. No wood is used in this portion. With that being said, if water was seeping through to the inside of the bilge from that bolt hole, there is nothing that can be damaged by the water. Seal the holes up or put a new bolt in its place.

If you have any further questions, please email me directly as I will be traveling starting tomorrow.

Thank you,

Andrew Custis

 

[Kurt]

Update: The bolt is ahead (forward) of the keel extension. It is the first bolt in the hull section and just forward of the drain plug. The seeping has stopped even though there is a bit of water still in the bilge so I’m of the opinion that the water entered through the bolt hole and is not migrating from the bilge. I'm a bit surprised at the overall volume of water. I'm letting it dry out a bit more and waiting on a response for the bolt type/size as I’m not keen to pull another one for sizing. I plan to 5200 the replacement and if I can't get a torque value, I will go hand tight and hope it doesn’t strip out. I don't see an easy way to prevent this issue as it may never happen again and it would most likely cause more harm to pull existing bolts and reseal. I welcome your thoughts on the matter.

 

[trailertrawlerkismet]

Kurt: 5200 will do the job very nicely for the bolt in question. Even with that repaired, it is my opinion, that you'll still have a wet bilge at times. I've found that the bilge on our R27 is never completely dry because some water works its way over the top of the cockpit gutter system when it rains a great deal or when washing the boat and I've come to accept that. To help compensate I've taken the white plastic drain filter discs out (tip from Mike Rizzo) to help let the water drain faster and help keep the bilge a little dryer.

 

[baz]

… plus water drips from the stuffing box will go directly to bilge. The bilge pump directly below engine cannot suck up the last few millimeters of water down there… at least this is what I see in our R-25. If I look at the bilge area where bilge pump #2 is located (in front of engine and seen via the cabin floor hatch) it's completely dry… again, in our R-25 this is the case.

 

[ESCAPE]

My Ranger Tug 25, 2007 has one bolt missing also. When dove last I discovered. This posting will help me fix when I pull the boat next month.
I also find the cockpit drains slowly and hence my starboard and port aft bilges fill up. Are you concerned about getting leaves etc. into the 1 1/2 " drain pipes and cloging them, if you remove the " filter disks " ? Do they simply pry up out of the drain ?
Lastly, I plan to add a second bilge pump forward of the engine. How did you exit this drain ? With a tee into the aft bilge pump drain line ?, a second dedicated exit thru the aft transom ?
Barry, Gill & Chloe & Jake, thank you for the enginr alignment sites.

Bob Messmer

bobatwork2006@aol.com

 

[trailertrawlerkismet]

Bob: I'll answer the drain question. When the boat is in the water I've had no problem with the drains getting plugged up. With that said when we had the boat on its trailer and sitting in our driveway this spring the drains did get clogged up with tree debris, so yes you do need to be careful. Careful also not to drop something into the opened drain that you don't want to disappear out the discharge on the transom. To clean the clogged drain out this spring I used my water hose with high pressure to work the debris thru and out...it was not difficult but it was wet and messy....next year I'll reinsert the disc whle the boat is in my driveway. The disc come out easily by inserting a small screw driver head thru one of the drains holes and prying loose.

 

[walldog]

We have a Golden Retriever who lives in our cockpit. We have out of necessity had the plastic strainers out for two years now with no problems.....of course we do not park under many trees :lol: . Occasionally I shoot water through them with the water hose to flush out any residual dog hair or other debris. You can remove them by prying up as they are held in by friction.

 

[baz]

If you pry out those plastic strainers be sure to store them where you can recall them easily. They are small, white and can easily disappear in your tool case… just a heads-up.

When we bought our boat one of the first things I did was to pry out those strainers. I typically power wash my cockpit each time I dock after a cruise. This power washing activity puts a lot of water in the cockpit and having the strainers removed allowed a lot of water to be dispelled quickly without the gutters overflowing.

You could drill larger holes in the strainers and leave them in place I suppose…

I also think Ranger Tugs should install additional holes in the engine hatch gutters toward the stern as when underway with the chance of water splashing in quantity into the cockpit and the boat's bow pointing up into the sky so to speak and with the cockpit's floor angled up, the forward gutter drain holes cannot flush the water away… not a big issue… just a thought as I've experienced water gushing over into the cockpit and not getting dispelled as it should through the forward gutter holes, and spilling down to the engine bilge area.

 

[knotflying]

I thought a good addition for drainage would be scuppers at the stern and let all the overflow run right out. The Rossborough's have these as their only means of drainage and they work well.

 

[Kurt]

Short version: Check keel plate bolts every 3-4 years if boat is kept in the water. Not sure about out of water.
Long version: I finally got down and pulled 2 bolts that go into the hull, one forward and one aft of the "missing" bolt.
Aft hole gave a good bit of water ~16oz before becoming a drip. Forward bolt no water at all.
The Important piece of information is the bolts are heavily corroded.
The bolt I had thought fell out is still in there but 3/4" is missing. The bolt corroded off on the back side of the plate with remaining 7/8" still in the hull brass plate.
The screws I pulled have ~half the diameter eaten away at the same point, 3/4"-7/8" from top of bolt head. One bolt also shows pitting on the head but the other looks fine. There is no corrosion on the threads engaged in the brass.
The other issue found is the threads on both bolts are rolled ~3/8" from end of bolt. So it looks like these bolts appear to have had a thread mismatch. It is prevalent on both bolts and these areas are not corroded so it is very clear. I'm going to go with the same thread/size and see if I can get them to hold but if not it looks like I will have to upsize the bolts and tap the holes.
I have yet to get to the rear bolts that go into the faring but I suspect they may have similar issues as one bolt head is missing back there as well,(flush with plate not a hole).
My guess is that the enclosed space between the plate and hull is accelerating the corrosion. Does anyone think bedding the plate to the boat would help? I'm of the mind that the plate would work enough to allow water either way and the best I can do is check and replace the bolts regularly.

 

[baz]

So do you think this is a 6 year periodic maintenance item to inspect given your R-25 is MY2008 ? Our R-25 is kept in salt water year round. I had bottom paint done last year in March. I'm hoping to get at least 3 years out of this bottom painting. When having to repaint the hull in 2015/2016 I will certainly be checking on those bolts. Thanks for posting the issue. 🙂