Garboard drain

[SteveHam]

Hi Everyone,
We recently purchased a 2003 1900 Sr, which is serving us extremely well (nothing but hassle free boating this far - touch wood!), but I did notice the drain plug housing moved when tighten / loosen and the screws seemed loose. The tightening by us isn’t excessive and we have plumber tape on the plug... Upon inspection, the 3 screws were broken inside the housing!
I’ve now taken the garboard off, cleaned it up and next is the reinstall.. before I do this I wanted to check whether:
- I need to epoxy the holes and redrill/ rescrew? Or just retap the existing holes?
- there were any other better drains?
- best size screws to use?

The glass seems pretty thick here as it looks like about 2.5 inches looking back into the engine housing...

Any advice would be greatly appreciated
Cheers
Steve

[mmwjr]

Welcome Aboard!

I would clean the area and epoxy over the broken off screws. Then rotate the garboard drain and drill new holes. Install it with 3M 5200 to seal the new screws and garboard flange to transom interface.

[SteveHam]

Thanks mmwjr!
Rotating sounds like the best option. There is a small notch on the drain housing (lined up the the base of the drain hole) but that should be ok to rotate also.
Do you know what the original screw sizes are? I’ve purchased #8 stainless and also brass, brass seems too soft... cheers

[shrew]

It should be Bronze screws, not brass. Brass contains zinc.

[mmwjr]

#8 Bronze screws.

[shrew]

Originally Posted by SteveHam

(nothing but hassle free boating this far - touch wood!)

Oh man, you've done it now!!!!

When you remove the garboard plug, let things drain and dry out a little bit. Then check to see if the transom core is exposed and if there has been any water exposure. The transom core should not be soft and punky. That MIGHT be why you're seeing movement. Or else the movement might have broken the seal and allowed water to ingress (chicken or egg scenario).

[shrew]

Also, if the screw holes are wallowed out, going with the same size screws might leave them susceptible to the same movement. You might need to drill out the holes, then fill them with epoxy, then re-drill pilot holes and screw in the #8 screws. I'd use an epoxy with a filler for structural strength.

Example:

Epoxy: West Systems 105
Hardener: 205 or 206 depending on location and temperature (hotter the higher number)
Filler: 404 (High Density) or 406 (Colloidal Silica)

I'd probably go with 404 since you're probably going to be reefing on the plug during installation and removal.