I believe in Kaizen, or continual improvement, so for my now 27-year-old classic 1990 Boston Whaler REVENGE 22 Walk-Through Whaler Drive boat, that meant this summer's project was the replacement of another Beckson circular pry-out deck access plate. I described the process of replacing the first access plate in a thread archived in the Old Forum:
Pry-out Deck Access Plate Replacement
http://continuouswave.com/ubb/Forum3/HTML/019387.html
Note: some links in that older article to the BECKSON website are broken now. To jump to the BECKSON website use this link:
https://beckson.com/prydp.html
Using the hypertext links in that prior article, I just clicked on the link to Beckson and ordered a new 10-inch pry-out plate. The new plate arrived a few days later, and eventually I got around to replacing the old one.
The plate to be replaced is in the molded deck section that covers the fuel tank cavity in the hull at the aft end of the cockpit and on-centerline. Below this plate you find the fuel tank pickup tubes outlets and the bonding connections. Removal of the old access plate was easy. I drilled out the rivets and the base ring came off easily from the deck. After about 40-minutes of careful persuasion I also got 99-percent of the old silicone sealer material removed. The old sealant did not want to release from the gel coat as easily as I recall it did on the first go-round with the other opening. Again, a slightly dull wide-blade eXacTo knife was a good tool, as was very careful and patient pulling of the sealer as the knife worked on the joint between deck and sealant.
I was well on the way to finishing the job when I trial-fitted the new deck plate onto the deck's molded recess for it. The new Beckson part would not fit properly; there was an interference fit. The inner ring opening fits nicely into the cutout in the deck, but the outer ring is just a few thousandths of an inch too large in diameter to drop into the circular recess in the deck mold. It is a very close-but-not-quite fit. It was a very warm day when I was working on this and we were in direct sunlight. I put the new access ring in the refrigerator for about 30-minutes, then re-tried the fit. It was much closer to fitting into the recess, but still not quite.
In looking very closely at the molded molded recess in the boat's deck. I could see by eye that there was some slight variation in its roundness. Maybe on the particular day when this particular deck section was molded 25-years ago the mold had a bit of eccentricity in that region. Or maybe the mold has always had a bit of eccentricity for this opening, but the original Beckson deck plate was just a few thousandths smaller in diameter and still fit.
Of course, other problems intervened and had to be attended to, so I could not finish the project. I put in the old deck plate and taped it in place with some very good cloth duct tape to keep water from getting into the fuel tank area while I left the boat to sit under cover for a few weeks until I get back on this project. I plan to remedy the fit by modifying the new Beckson circular pry-out deck plate outer diameter as necessary to fit the existing recess in my boat's deck. The Beckson deck plate ring is plastic and to abrade away a few thousandths here and there as needed to get it to drop in should be easily done. The existing ring was in fine shape, but its pry-out plate was cracked. Note that the old pry-out and new pry-out center parts are not interchangeable. You cannot just get a new pryout that will fit an old deck ring; you have to replace both parts at the same time.
Replacement Deck Pry-out Access Plates
Re: Replacement Deck Pry-out Access Plates
To follow-up on the replacement of the Beckson circular pry-out deck plate, I was able to install the replacement part after making some minor modification to it. I used a Dremel tool and cylindrical sanding attachment to abrade away some of the outer diameter of the flange. I just slowly rotated the circular part while lightly sanding away some material, making one whole revolution around the flange. After each revolution of grinding, I tested the fit.
After several iteration I had reduced the diameter of the flange to produce a nice drop-in non-interference fit into the recess in the molded deck cover. Then I wet sanded the new part's flange with some 220-grit wet-dry sandpaper, smoothing out any irregularities from my hand hand-held grinding. I also used the Dremel tool to smooth some obvious irregularities in the molded recess in the deck. Caution: do this very cautiously as the 25-year-old gel coat layer on my Boston Whaler boat was very rapidly removed by the abrasion of the Dremel-tool.
For this re-fit I decided to use the original hole locations (which I had earlier repaired with some wood dowel and thickened epoxy). I carefully drilled new pilot holes, then enlarged them slightly to allow the new fasteners to self-thread without exerting too much stress on the laminate structure (to avoid cracking it). I also had on hand several new screws of shorter length to use for the one hole that always seems to be located directly above a fuel hose. Using a shorter fastener in that hole eliminates any chance the point of the fastener breaks through the deck mold and is exposed above the fuel hose.
Molded into the Beckson circular pry-out deck access plate is the text, "Use only Silicon sealant." For that reason I used a silicon sealant. Due to the boat location about a 70-mile round trip from the nearest West Marine store or other ship chandlery, I used hardware store brand DAP sealant. I used clear sealant. In a perfect world I would have sought out a tinted sealant, perhaps "almond" color, and used a major brand, perhaps GE Silicon II brand.
After several iteration I had reduced the diameter of the flange to produce a nice drop-in non-interference fit into the recess in the molded deck cover. Then I wet sanded the new part's flange with some 220-grit wet-dry sandpaper, smoothing out any irregularities from my hand hand-held grinding. I also used the Dremel tool to smooth some obvious irregularities in the molded recess in the deck. Caution: do this very cautiously as the 25-year-old gel coat layer on my Boston Whaler boat was very rapidly removed by the abrasion of the Dremel-tool.
For this re-fit I decided to use the original hole locations (which I had earlier repaired with some wood dowel and thickened epoxy). I carefully drilled new pilot holes, then enlarged them slightly to allow the new fasteners to self-thread without exerting too much stress on the laminate structure (to avoid cracking it). I also had on hand several new screws of shorter length to use for the one hole that always seems to be located directly above a fuel hose. Using a shorter fastener in that hole eliminates any chance the point of the fastener breaks through the deck mold and is exposed above the fuel hose.
Molded into the Beckson circular pry-out deck access plate is the text, "Use only Silicon sealant." For that reason I used a silicon sealant. Due to the boat location about a 70-mile round trip from the nearest West Marine store or other ship chandlery, I used hardware store brand DAP sealant. I used clear sealant. In a perfect world I would have sought out a tinted sealant, perhaps "almond" color, and used a major brand, perhaps GE Silicon II brand.