Winter Projects, 1988 340 Sundancer

I just bought a 1988 weekender. I am in the process of fixing the leaks in my cabin also. What im doing and would sugest.

1. remove and rebed the bow rail, Some of these nuts are not easy to get to.

2. remove rub rail cut back headliner and rebed. (The head liner was installed before the top of the boat so this tends to wick water into the cabin.

3. remove all cleats and rebed.

4. remove windows and hatches and rebed (this is also a great time to replace any window seals that arte in bad shape you can still get all these parts from tailormade.

This is a somewhat time consuming task but doesn't require much cash. Everything should be beded in 4200.

This would eliminate all the water problems that are typical for these late 80s searays.

When i get around to doing mine i will get some pictures
 
4200 is an adhesive. A better material for bedding items that are already mechanically supported would be butyl rubber. It stretches a lot more than 4200 without leaking. It never dries. Only place butyl rubber is not good is where fuel could come in contact with it or to seal certain plastics.
 
Yup the bow rails are going to be fun. Lucky the way they designed the 340, I can get at all the backs of the screws where the stanchion mounts to the deck without any headliner in the way. But it will be a two person job. All the through bolting is all stainless, including the backing plate. Some of the screws are into blocks of wood. On those which go into wood, I am going to use thin epoxy in the hole and wax the screws when I put them back in. I did get info on what to use for rebedding. 3m makes 101 and 4000 for this purpose. Both you need to use a sponge washer, between the stanchion and the boat. Put a lot of the bedding material, then only tighten until it oozes out. Wait 24 to 48 hours before completely tighten down. that is where the sponge washers come into play. When they compress, it allows both a tight grip around the screw, but also compress to about .020 of an inch which keeps the bedding material from completely squeezing out.


Countersinking is very important in all materials. When I was a tool and die maker, I would see harden steel fracture around the threaded hole because it was not countersunk enough.

I hope Santa was good to you all! Merry Christmas!


I forgot to put the top hatches on the list to do. I did notice some very minor signs around the bow hatch that makes me want to take hatches off and re-bed them as well.

So I got my work cut out! Just thing April is jut 3 months away. I will keep you posted on the updates.
 
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any suggestion as to what should be used to re-seal the exterior Gel Coat to Gel coat seams? What does Sea Ray use?. the majority of the seals on my boat have dried up and are not really doing the job anymore. I would imagine it should be scraped out and new sealer applied? Wouldn't want to just put new sealer over it?
An example would be the Hardtop/radar arch to the maine structure seal. Any real cool trick to getting the old stuff out other than a screw driver?

How about the exterior Glass to metal Frame seal. I don't thing there is any any gasket. Looks like that there was just a heavy bead of Sealer/caulking applied and the window held in place until it cured. Did they then go over that with another sealer or some sort? Any suggestions would be welcomed.
 
Ka1oxd said:
Here is the spec sheet from 3M which outlines product use.
http://multimedia.3m.com/mws/mediawebserver?66666UuZjcFSLXTtMXfXnXfXEVuQEcuZgVs6EVs6E666666--
Click to expand...

Thanks for the Link Ka10xd. I would like to know what Sea Ray uses though if anyone knows. Just want to get the perspective from the boatbuilder. 3M makes great products and I use them all the time around the house, car and boat. However, they will tell you their stuff is what you should use for obvious reasons. Just wondering if Boat builders use 3M and if not, what do they use?
 
Hey James good luck with your projects and be sure to take lots of pictures... love the site please keep us posted...
 
Yup! I have been keeping a blog of what is going on with the project. Club Sea Ray has been a great wealth of knowledge, but some of the items I could not find information on, so I decided to create that site. Now the documentation is posted for all. I am having a lot of fun with it. Just think 3 more months and it is boating season! All these projects have to get done before April. This year I will be able to really enjoy the boat. I started a new job s month ago that gave me back my personal life back. No longer am I on the road 3+ hours a day to travel back and forth to work and sleeping through Saturday. The new job is more money and only 3.2 miles from the house.
 
I did try today to use a wire wheel on the remainder of the adhesive that was left on the ceiling. In some areas it came off completely without chewing off the glass. But it a couple of areas were you could see the glass mat under the epoxy, it was making a mess. I guess this weekend it is going to be warm so I am going to use the Debond 2000 and see how that works. Once I get all the glue off I will put up more pictures.
 
Well today got the first piece of headliner up by myself. Tomorrow I will get the second and last piece up. Boy did it come out nice! More detail on the project website.

tn_SAM_0647.jpg
 
Looking good James... I'm watching your progress closely... I really want to do mine know. Why were you unable to get the hatch out?
 
They sealed the hatch so good, I could not get a bite under neath it. After an hour of actually trying to even get a little tiny screw driver, a chisel, wooden wedges, anything I could think of, it would not move up. It was getting to the point that I was afraid that I was going to bend up the frame. So I thought to myself that if this is that tough, then I guess no water is coming underneath it.
 
Wow, That is good to know James. Do you think someone has rebedded it with 5200 at some point. That stuff is impossible to break a seal. Keep up the good work can't wait to see some new pictures... enjoy the sun shine my friend.
 
Well the headliner is in! Did not come out too bad. The first Picture is me higher than a kite from smelling the glue.
tn_SAM_0654.jpg


tn_SAM_0660.jpg


Completed. The headliner shows a few crinkles but they should drop after it sits for a while
tn_SAM_0663.jpg


And Jason, I am going to tape the edges of the hatch with about 1/8" gap between the edge of the hatch and the tape line and just caulk just for that extra added protection.

You can see just this side of the hatch the seam that I created by overlapping the vinyl without any foam backing on one piece.
 
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