Ok I am now officially a Sea Ray boat owner !!

[Davepnola]

Now a few problems that need to be addressed ?
The boat is 97 330 DA and overal survey was better than expected.
Things we found:

The upper exhaust ports coming out the side of the hull has hair line cracking around the holes, both sides . Is this a common problem ? Or factory defect ?
The radar arch is Alluminum and has some surface peeling from corrosion, my guess it is powder coated ? Why did they install alluminum and not fiberglass.
The windless is jammed, anyone give me the procedure to unjam it ?
The starboard prop is out of balance, I know what to do there .
The back refrigerator is inop, any suggestions on repairing it ?
The famous sump pump has corrosion on the connection.

That is about it. The Boat is really clean and has maintenance records and log books from new. Thanks for your response .

Dave

 

[fwebster]

Cracking exhaust ports is a common occurrence. It happes to almost every boat since Sea Ray uses putty of some sort instead of fiberglass and resin to radius and fair the exhaust ports. This isn't structural and Sea Ray does not consider this a defect.

The arch is aluminum to save weight. The only fix is to get it repainted.

I can't help you with the windlass. Sea Ray used several different brands back then and you don't indicate which one you have.

Back refrigerator? I assume you mean either the freezer of icemaker in the cockpit......The cooling system is closed on those and not many appliance guys will replace components in them because they don't stock parts and removal is harder than they are used to. You might remove it and take it to an appliance repair shop and save it, but considering its age,most people would just bite the bullet and replace it. Sit down before you get a price for a new one.

The sump pump is just a matter of tracing down the culprit then replacing the switch, pump or resplicing wires with proper butt connectors.

 

[Davepnola]

Thanks , I will find out on the windless.
Is there any special process on repairig the cracking around the exhaust ports.
Or will any fiberglass shops jusgrind the cracks out and re gell coat around the the exhaust.
I would like tho have it done the first time and forget about it after that ???

Is the cracking from the heat and the certain type of putty Sea Ray used ?
Do they make some kind of inserts for the ehaust ports ?

 

[Davepnola]

The windless is a Lofrans . Can you explain the procedure to unjam or diagnose ? Thanks

 

[fwebster]

I don't have first hand experience with Lofrans, so I'm not the best source of info on that.

On the exhaust ports, there isn't anything wrong with the materials and direct heat isn't the cause of the cracking. The reason for the cracks is because of the way Sea Ray chose to do this. A hole is cut in the hull, the exhaust tube is inserted and glassed in then the raduis is faired with putty.

The fiberglass/resin layup in the rest of the hull has a different cooefficient of expansioin than the putty does. It won't matter how thick or thin the gelcoat is, as long as putty is used as a filler, it will crack. I had a 390EC with this problem and decided to fix it permanently. We ground out all the filler and built up the radius with fiberglass and resin. It took a couple of days and some grinding to get it right and fair but once we shot gelcoat over it, it never cracked again. I saw the boat last month and the exhaust ports are still solid after about 12 years.

Sea Ray uses putty because it is quick and does not slow production. Grinding out the cracked area and putting new filler in, raduising it and shooting gelcoat over it is a quick and easy repair, but it won't last. Using fiberglas cloth and resin is more expensive because it takes a lot longer, but it is permanent if done right. So, you pick............cheap and temporary (1-3 years) or permenent.

One consideration, though, is that depending upon how you go about the repair, you may have to re-bootstripe the boat.