Boats For Sale:
seats and floors - again! |
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johng99 
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Joined: May-15-2007 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 3 |
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 Topic: seats and floors - again!Posted: May-15-2007 at 7:40pm |
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Hello to all - I have been a lurker for awhile, but finally am asking a question and hope that someone here can help me. I have a 1980 Martinique in fairly good condition. My problem has to do with the two bucket seats in front - both are pedestal mounted (9inch pedestals).The passenger front seat mounting screws have stripped out and the seat is loose. My floor is not soft, but I can't find a solid surface to mount this seat to! I drilled a small hole through the deck on this side and what I see is a thin sheet of fiberglass with a layer of foam underneath - certainly nothing to mount a pedestal seat with. On the driver side there is a thick plywood mounting board under the fiberglass sheet and it is very solid. The main stringers seem solid, etc. My questions -
1) How were the original seat mounted (boat interior was new about 10 years ago)? 2) Is this floor design normal? The floor is solid with no to very little give. 3) Any ideas? What am I doing wrong? I thought that maybe I just can't find the plywood mounting board for the passenger side, but I don't want to put alot of holes in the boat trying (both seats are dimensionally at the same location on their respective side of the boat). I don't want to cut up this floor as I don't seem to have a need to, but mounting this seat to a sheet of fiberglass with foam underneath and no other support seams doomed to failure. I have owned the boat about 1.5 years. It runs well. Any help is appreciated! |
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8122pbrainard
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Joined: September-14-2006 Location: Three Lakes Wi. Status: Offline Points: 41040 |
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Posted: May-17-2007 at 5:07am |
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99, There should be a plywood mounting board on both sides of the boat. Are you sure that there wasn't one originally on the port side? You may be able to use a "stud finder" to locate it. The hole you said you drilled, did you drill it in a different spot than the original mounting holes? If you can't put in larger and or longer screws, fill the old holes with thickened epoxy then redrill pilot holes.
If in fact there isn't anything below the fiberglass, then you may try a "well nut" A well stocked hardware will have them in all the little drawers of odd hardware. They are a neoprene rubber insert that have a machine screw brass nut molded into them. When inserted in the hole and tightened , the neoprene expands like a blind rivet. I don't know if the thin fiberglass will hold the seat however. The ply has got to be under the floor! Maybe it slipped down? |
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eric lavine
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Joined: August-13-2006 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 13413 |
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Posted: May-17-2007 at 7:25am |
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Pete, they may be screwing right into the glass
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"the things you own will start to own you"
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8122pbrainard
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Joined: September-14-2006 Location: Three Lakes Wi. Status: Offline Points: 41040 |
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Posted: May-17-2007 at 8:03am |
If so, chalk another good one up for the CC "engineers"! |
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johng99
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Posted: May-17-2007 at 8:48am |
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I will try a studfinder as I don't want to make a pincushion of my floor by drilling holes - so far I don't see any dropping away of the foam from the fiberglass floor. Is it really possible that there is no plywood in the passenger side from the factory?
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8122pbrainard
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Joined: September-14-2006 Location: Three Lakes Wi. Status: Offline Points: 41040 |
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Posted: May-17-2007 at 9:17am |
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99, If you do not find any wood under the fiberglass, I would then use the epoxy. A good altough expensive outlet for West brand epoxy is West Marine. You can get small cans and metering pumps plus a filler to thicken it but they also have glue syringes. The syringe (glue injector) can be used to fill the old holes. Get as much epoxy as you can under the floor (it may even displace some of the foam-thats good). Let it harden and drill generous size pilot holes (just bigger than the root dia. of the screw) If the screw goes in hard, drill a larger pilot hole. It's the threads of the screw doing the work of holding and not the binding of the screw root on the hole.
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johng99
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Posted: May-21-2007 at 1:39pm |
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I used a studfinder Sunday, and it appears that there is a wood (or whatever) backing under the fiberglass, but it is up front, about 1 foot farther forward than the current seat location. It is about 10" to 1ft. in diameter. Could this have been a rear-facing seat? How were the Martiniques configured? The pictures that I have seen show a forward-facing seat.
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8122pbrainard
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Joined: September-14-2006 Location: Three Lakes Wi. Status: Offline Points: 41040 |
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Posted: May-22-2007 at 5:33am |
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99, I don't think the Martique had the option of a rear facing observers seat but the Nautique did and I believe both used the same hull. Maybe the wood you did find would have been for the Nautique seat? Go with injecting the epoxy.
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eric lavine wrote: