Pontoon Boat & Deck Boat Forum

[quote="willy13"]what would the isolating washers need to be made of?[/quote]

Nylon or any firm plastic like material I would guess...

Exactly that, when we do work for NASA we use a lot of teflon.

I'll stick with plastic plug then. I just read another post that someone was using brass and nobody ripped him up over it, so I figured it was ok!

the 'easiest' way to see if your toons have chambers:

1. drill a 1" hole in the side, above the waterline, of the nose cone
2. use a funnel, and pour 3 gallons of non-ethanol gasoline into the hole
3. open the rear drain cap
4. light a zippo near the nose cone hole
5. if flames come shooting out the rear hole, then you don't have sealed chambers.

See? very simple.

if there's anything left of you, or the toon, simply patch the holes with wrigley's spearmint gum. I've heard the mint really makes things stick together.

[quote="taylorjm"]So I pulled the boat out after a week in the water, thought I'd listen to it and see if I heard anything. Heard some sloshing in the port tube, but now that I thought about it, I was listening right by the fuel tank while the wife pulled forward and stopped on the trailer. Heard the same sloshing on the starboard side. Brought the boat to the storage yard, figured I'd try and pull the plastic plugs. Found they weren't in very tight at all. The port side, all I got was a puff of air when I pulled the plug. The starboard side had some water, maybe 2-4 gallons or so. I'm not really sure there's a leak, or the plug was just leaking over the years, since it's a 2007 Bentley and new to me this year.

So I'm going to replace the plugs with some brass ones and put on a few wraps of teflon tape. So, how do you know if your tube has chambers? Or do all of them? I didn't see any kind of plugs on top of the tubes, but didn't feel around between every bracket. Or do they have chambers but space at the top to allow pressurizing the entire tube?[/quote]

The majority of toons have chambers. They are either sealed or baffled (an opening at the bottom of each divider.) If you have sealed chambers, there will be a top plug for each chamber.

[quote="PlaynDoc"]the 'easiest' way to see if your toons have chambers:

1. drill a 1" hole in the side, above the waterline, of the nose cone
2. use a funnel, and pour 3 gallons of non-ethanol gasoline into the hole
3. open the rear drain cap
4. light a zippo near the nose cone hole
5. if flames come shooting out the rear hole, then you don't have sealed chambers.

See? very simple.

if there's anything left of you, or the toon, simply patch the holes with wrigley's spearmint gum. I've heard the mint really makes things stick together.[/quote]

The only issue is it's hard to find non-ethanol gas anywhere near here. So I guess your method won't work!

So I wrapped the plastic plugs in teflon tape, and put them back in. I was surprised they aren't tapered, so they never really tightened up. How the heck are they supposed to seal? Coming from a family of pipefitters where the logic of "tighten it as much as you can, plus one more", the idea of a plug that isn't tapered doesn't make sense to me.

[quote="taylorjm"]So I wrapped the plastic plugs in teflon tape, and put them back in. I was surprised they aren't tapered, so they never really tightened up. How the heck are they supposed to seal? Coming from a family of pipefitters where the logic of "tighten it as much as you can, plus one more", the idea of a plug that isn't tapered doesn't make sense to me.[/quote]

Did you use white Teflon tape? The gray teflon tape is thicker. You will want to test that one toon for leaks. Obviously you have a small one.

[quote="taylorjm"]So I wrapped the plastic plugs in teflon tape, and put them back in. I was surprised they aren't tapered, so they never really tightened up. How the heck are they supposed to seal? Coming from a family of pipefitters where the logic of "tighten it as much as you can, plus one more", the idea of a plug that isn't tapered doesn't make sense to me.[/quote]

Sounds like you found shipping plugs, plugs meant simply to prevent debris from getting inside of things while they are not in use...

[quote="teecro"][quote="taylorjm"]So I wrapped the plastic plugs in teflon tape, and put them back in. I was surprised they aren't tapered, so they never really tightened up. How the heck are they supposed to seal? Coming from a family of pipefitters where the logic of "tighten it as much as you can, plus one more", the idea of a plug that isn't tapered doesn't make sense to me.[/quote]

Sounds like you found shipping plugs, plugs meant simply to prevent debris from getting inside of things while they are not in use...[/quote]

Wait a second. So are the plugs supposed to be tapered?

I'm not going to waste any time trying to chase down a pinhole leak until I can confirm that the plugs are sealing properly. When I removed the one plug, it was barely in there hand tight.

[quote="taylorjm"]Wait a second. So are the plugs supposed to be tapered?
I'm not going to waste any time trying to chase down a pinhole leak until I can confirm that the plugs are sealing properly. When I removed the one plug, it was barely in there hand tight.[/quote]

Without seeing your boat first hand no one can be absolutely sure of what is in your hand as you bought your boat 2nd hand so we have no idea of what the previous owner or owners may have done. Generally yes the plugs are nothing more than tapered pipe plugs and may be made of plastic or alum... My boat is brand new and comes from the factory with 1/2" NPT ALUM pipe plugs, but that is my boat not yours...

Thanks. I'll pick up a couple more plugs and see how they fit.

I also found this neat chart telling what metals react with others. I was surprised to see how zinc and galvanized steel doesn't react with aluminum, but stainless does.

https://www.fastenal.com/content/feds/p ... rosion.pdf

Well, I pulled the old plugs back out, and a huge puff of air came rushing out. I'm guessing if there was a leak in a toon it wouldn't have have a rush of air like that, so maybe the plugs really were leaking before. They were very loose. So I replaced them with pvc pipe plugs, and they defiantly were tapered and didn't go in near as far as the other plugs did. So maybe there are some kind of shipping plugs that aren't tapered? Either way, the new plugs fit much tighter.