1973 srv 240 soft cabin floor

[98grand]

I just picked up a 1973 SRV 240 Weekender and everything seems ok with it, rebuilt engine and out drive, but something that concerns me is when you step into the cabin the whole floor is springy and bounces up and down. Is this a big deal to fix and should I worry about? Also in the cabin the galley bilge pump pit has about a 1/2 inch of water in it that is too little for the pump to pick up.

Thanks

 

[capted6060]

It sounds like you have the dreaded soft deck syndrome.. Most likely the wood is water saturated. It can be a nasty job to fix. Most bilge pumps will not pump ALL of the water out..My question is where is this water coming from? Couls it be draining out of the deck in the cabin. I have seen water drain from water logged stringers/decks when you drill a small hole at the lowest point you can. It could be a small crack or hole that is letting water drain from the wood. It could leak forever!!!

 

[98grand]

Thanks for the quick response, it appears that the hatch is leaking bit. The stringers seem fine by the engine, but i can not access them in the cabin.

 

[Matt89GT]

I'd use a shop vac to suck it out and get it dry. Now for the wood, good luck on your floor project, it isn't gonna get any better.

 

[Getaway]

My bet is if the floor is already "springy", this means the wood underneath is deteriorated and your support is only the glass work. This is going to take some overhaul work. I'm going through this right now with my 268DA, but we worked from the transom forward into the aft cabin. We have cut the internal glass away and excavated all the old wood and foam.

Water leaking down through a hatch will generally not ruin the wood under the glass. Generally speaking, the wood is ruined by water intrusion directly into the wood, like a hole in the transom, swim platform bolts, transducers etc etc.

Water wicks through a hull very effectively. I'll bet the stringers are going to be soaked. They may "seem" dry, but drill a hole into them and pull out the wood. If it is between brown/black and fine, then she's wet. If the wood comes out tan like you just drilled a 2x4, then you are ok and you caught it in time.

My advice would be to first talk to the guy who rebuilt the engine and ask him if he replaced the lag bolts that hold down the motor mounts. He will be able to tell you if they went in ok or if it was soft or if the old bolts were corroded and thinned down. If he did not touch those and just pulled the engine off the motor mounts, then, you need to get those stringers checked. Bad things can happen if that motor is moving around down there.

Don't be spooked if you need to dig into this boat and rebuild the superstructure. You will have better than new boat when you are done (if done correctly). I feel like we are building a brand new 268DA and it is actually fun. The new glass is going down now and we are building her back up.

 

[eman369]

ummm pics please your 73 and my 77 are about the same boat

 

[douglcfl]

I have a 1973 240 Hard Top, virtually the same boat. I had the same problem in the floor leading into the cabin. There is a small drain at the base of the step down into the cabin. It just drops the water down under the floor where it feeds into a pipe that runs under the fuel tank the length of the boat to the bilge. The problem is that it isn't a closed system, in other words the pipe isn't attached to the drain in the floor so the water drops under the floor and gets into the foam. I removed a section of floor there, removed all the foam, put in a larger drain that is attached to the pipe and added new foam.