Carver Owners Forum

Spent the day crawling all over my new to me 405 Carver. I have it in heated storage so it was quit comfortable. I have read the factory installed storage box at the swim platform has unsealed fasteners and prone to moisture damage? The article indicated it may be necessary to remove rotten wood and replace with a epoxy filler. I could not see where or how the box is attached from the top side view. . Looking underneath the swim platform through the aft cabin access I see no appearance of water migration? Does anyone have experience with this? If so please direct me. Thanks Dan

I can help
The water migration/rot will be in the wood core you wont see it from the top or the bottom of the swimplatform. I have a 405
( people with 355/356 should do this too. (imo) and have removed my box to epoxy the mounting holes in the swimplatform and then reinstalled it. The box has a inner liner which hides the mounting screws. You can see where it is caulked when you open the box lid and along the back wall on the outside along the top. You take a knife and score the caulk all the way around the box and lift the entire inner liner and lid off as one piece. Then you will see the screws holding the outer part to the platform and wall. Remove the screws take a metal wire or whatever and probe the holes if they are soft you will need to remove t h e damaged wood or might get lucky to dry it if not rotted and what I did was redrill them oversize and fill with epoxy .This way the new holes are in epoxy and no wood can rot since water can't get to the wood core again. Reinstall the outer box and then the inner part recaulk the parts together. Easy peasy

Thank you g36. This is on my "to do" list.

To add to the above, when you enlarge the hole, try to dig out about a 1/4" of the core all the way around the hole then fill the whole thing with epoxy putty. This will widen the epoxy plug and strengthen the mounting area further. Make sure you dry it out first. If you still get wet core after digging out around the hole, you may have a bigger issue and will have a decision to make. Once water gets into the core, it's pretty easy for it to migrate through the balsa far from the opening and turn it to mush.

I will keep all posted on my findings. I will be back at the boat next week.

Update: Spent the morning removing the transom box. Not sure how "Easy peasy" can be used to discribe the job? I had to work to break the 3M 5200 bond between the inner / outer shell. I found most of the fasteners freely rotated in their position. It is apparent there is water damage and wood is rotten. Will start drilling over size holes and inspecting wood. I am thinking if hole gets larger than 1/2" I will take Viber's direction and remove wood and back fill with epoxy. Any suggestions on epoxy?

I have also had good luck with Marine Tex. Easy to work with and seems to hold up very well.

Looks like I am in luck. Drilled the 10 existing storage box anchor screw holes to 3/8 dia. Found one hole with wet dark brown wood fiber. One with no wood backer, all the others had light dry wood chips.
Next step will have holes Dremel out with small ball bit. Vacuum out and apply Marine Tex.

Any suggestions on how to plug the hole with no backing? There is only fiberglass with nothing behind it. All other holes are blind and will hold the epoxy. Thanks Dan

This is just depressing! Now that is one thing I didn't figure I'd have to investigate. I will put it on the project list.