Replacing 396 salon door tracks

[KyleR]

First, I want to give credit to my wife who found a Facebook post where someone with a 444 did this repair/replacement. I do not have FB so there's no way I would have ever seen this.

Also, this may not the only way to do this, but it definitely worked great for me and was overall a pretty easy job. A little convoluted, but it seems most boat jobs are!

I just wanted to document it and put it out there for others and also get into a little more detail than the original FB post.

So the first thing I did was remove the seating on the flybridge over the sliding salon door. The backs of the seating just slide upward and out. No screws or hardware to deal with.

[KyleR]

Next, I removed the seat bottom by sliding it out and removed the series of screws shown below. With the screws removed, the seat section directly over the door can then be removed and set aside.

[KyleR]

Next I took a razor blade and cut the caulk line highlighted in yellow in the picture below. I know this picture still has the flybridge seats installed. The pictures were not taken exactly as I was doing the work as I frequently forgot to take a photo and then had to take it later on after the fact.

[KyleR]

Next, you want to open up the lower cabinet doors and remove the 6 screws holding a thin panel wall in place. Removing that panel will reveal a series of screws attaching the cabinet to the wall. Mine only had 6 screws, but the original person on FB said he had 8 screws, FYI.

[KyleR]

Finally, with all that done, you can now lift the entire cabinet out of place and move it out of the way giving you full access to the sliding door.

[KyleR]

Last thing is to remove the 4 screws on the top track and 4 screws on the bottom track and then lift the entire door assembly (i.e. outer door, screen door and both tracks) up and out. I then held the doors up and had my wife slide the tracks off the doors. Unfortunately I did not take any pics of the doors while they were out. However, the amount of mung and grease and grime that was on the runners and tracks was just awful! I spent an entire day just cleaning them with concentrated Simple Green and a scrub brush, and also removing all of the caulk.

One note, on the top rail there were four Starboard spacers under the rail held on with two screws each. You do not need to remove those spacers before removing the door. That can be done later.

Also, here some part numbers that I found on the bottom edges of the door. I called this company and they are still in business and were the original supplier for these doors to Carver. They now have a better design with rollers on the lower track (see below). Anyway, Bomon is working me up a quote and said they'll have it to me Monday to replace both tracks and all hardware including the new lower track with rollers. I'll keep you posted.

[KyleR]

Forgot to mention, but the original FB person who posted this used the same Bomon replacement parts and said they worked great. His post was 2+ years ago so I asked my wife to reach out and ask him how it was holding up. We haven't heard anything but if I do I'll update that as well. Here is a pic of his completed job.

Note: he removed that little corner cover I highlighted in yellow. This does NOT need to be removed, and he said it is actually metal and was held on with so much caulk it bent. So just leave it alone.

[KyleR]

One more note. The door "stops" for these doors turned out to be nothing more than a screw that was screwed into the fiberglass just past the lower and upper tracks. Not surprisingly, the screws were bent and the fiberglass was cracked. So I bought a rubber door stopper at the local hardware store and installed it as shown below. Much nicer and more robust! And it is 100% concealed once the cabinet is back in place.

[Pura Vida]

I don't have this model/type, but certainly appreciate the process documentation, will help someone in the future.

[KyleR]

To bring this to a close....the quote I got from Bomon for a new upper and lower track was $612 + $52 S&H from Canada to Florida, for a total of $664. Not cheap, but what on a boat is?

Given how difficult our door had become to operate and the ongoing necessity for track lube (which then became a magnet for dirt and grime), we bit the bullet and bought the tracks. I basically justified the cost telling myself it was a safety issue!

Anyway, the installation was super easy - the holes in the tracks were predrilled and matched up perfectly. The only thing I had to do was install the little spacers on the top rail, but all the necessary hardware to do that was included. Just had to drill a few holes.

The only issue I ran into was one that I did not realize until I had the door reinstalled. The problem is that the four screws that attach the mating rail to the door stand a little "proud" under the door lip (see pic below with the screws circled in red). With the screws slightly protruding, when you slide the door the screw heads hit the rollers and cause the door to bounce and make a heck of a racket! And it was not smooth like I wanted.

So, off came the door again and what I was able to do was remove those screws and drill a slightly deeper countersink so that the screw heads were fully flush. Problem fixed! I attached another pic of the new lower roller track too.

After that, I put it all back together and now you can operate the door with a single finger! In fact my problem now is that I tend to throw the door open and slam it shut!!