Replacing transom wood

[Tullibee]

The last time I had my old Lund out I noticed a bit more flex to the transom than I feel comfortable with. Further inspection led me to the conclusion that I should replace the wood in her. I drilled the rivets out that were holding the top plate/cover and pulled that off.

My question is how do remove the wood from the transom?? It seems stuck in there. Do I have to drill it out? Is there something holding it in there that I can't see?

I included a pic below.

[trolloni]

call lund they will have some ideas ,mine did it, that cap you took of was easy it is layered and glued ,after trying everything i could think of i just took my aluminum saw and cut the whole back out and bought a piece of composit stuff from a guy on here, Val,that stuff is tough , havent seen him post for awhile though,cut it to fit put it in covered with another piece of aluminum sealed it and screwed it down with stainless fastners that had waterproof washers on em got em from fastenal it worked good been 3 years and its not leakin yet another thing i did was after i had it all in place i sprayed it with rhino lining it is a very good water repellant,i did it myself lund will fix em but he told me 28 to 30 hr job at 28.00 an hour plus material i would have had em do for piece of mind but their 675 miles from here . whatever you decide be prepaired to be patient it takes time,and forget about welding it it makes the rivets swell and will leak like a sive,got a good friend here in town who has built commercial fishing boats for 40 years who told me that.

[CAMAN]

Are you sure you removed all the screws that could be penetrating the wood? Look everywhere! It may also have just swelled and wedged itself in or a rivet or two are hanging it up. Get an engine hoist (or some other way to lift it out) a couple large and strong screw in eye hooks and lift it out.

[delmuts]

Hopefully some one can post a link to the disscussion we had a while back about doing this.

As stated, once you have all the rivets out it gets dirty and can be a pain! From what i've seen, the top wood is what goes bad, and the bottom is better. We had to chisel( sp?) out the lower portion. Also note the the drain hole at the bottom ( on a starcraft any way) is drilled thru the wood. So we had to work around that too.

Valv still checks back on here from time to time. He may still have some composit replacements left. We had to grind ours down as it was thicker than what starcraft uses. But we got it in, and made the back VERY solid.

[Northlander]

We did Ripsticks and its a lot of taking bolts out and drilling screws out. We also had to chisel pieces out as we went. Call Lund and tell them what boat and they will send you the new transom core and I think on a 17' tiller it was like $300?

I would call Steve Baken and see what he can do it for. May be more cost and time effective.

[Tullibee]

I stopped by Joe's in Ely today and asked them for some advice on the matter. Just turns out I needed to talk to it a bit with a crowbar. I had it out in matter of a couple minutes once I pried on it a bit. I will get some marine grade plywood tomorrow and put her back together.

[Northlander]

Tullibee I recomend doing the composite transom or whatever it is and not the Marine plywood. It wont ever rot on you. Call Lund and have it shipped to Joes.

[Valv]

Yes, composite is the way to go, you won't regret it.

[Northlander]

Valv you got any composite transoms left laying around?

[Valv]

Nope, sorry, I had a million requests lately, but I sold them all out.