Pontoon Boat & Deck Boat Forum

I was checking all the bolts on my center tube of my 2006 Premier Pontoon. There are about 30 bolts that hold the center tube on. All but two of them were loose.

I was able to tighten them all except for the second one from the starboard rear of the boat. I am assuming they are carriage bolts and the square head is stripped. I tried using vice grips on the few exposed threads with a wrench on the nut and I can still not tighten it. It is very hard to get to given the fact that there is minimal space in between the tubes.

What I'm wondering is whether or not I need to worry about tightening the bolt. It is going to require removing the underskinning and probably cutting the old bolt off. Considering I used the boat last year the way it is with all the bolts loose and had no issues, I'm feeling that I can probably ignore it and not worry about it. I am just concerned given the fact of how close the bolt is to the motor.

I attached a couple of pictures for reference. Please let me know your thoughts.

How do nylon lock nuts loosen? Or am I not seeing correctly?

Vibration over 400 hours? Possibly loose from the factory?

Can you remove one of those trim pieces and look to see what the top of the bolts look like? I'd be curious if to know why all the other bolts would tighten but not that one. Maybe find someone with one of those scopes for viewing behind walls and such.

There seems to be a lot of bolts so 1 loose one may not matter, but I wouldn't really know for sure.

I can't see how a nylon lock nut would vibrate loose.

The underskinning is pretty much one solid piece almost to the front of the boat, which makes it tough to remove. This is the type of bolt that I think is being used. I am assuming the cross members have square holes in them for the carriage bolt to sit down in to. I will get a camera scope and see if I can find out more details.

If you have the tools and are mechanically inclined, take a air powered cut-off wheel, carefully cut a clean notch (suppose you could use a hacksaw if room allowed) in the end of the bolt, then use a large straight blade screw driver to hold the bolt while turning the NYLOC nut. other than I wouldn't worry about one loose if the others are all snug

of it won't tighten, it won't tignten. With so many other bolts, I just wouldn't worry about it.

Thanks guys! I may try to cut a slot in it.

I had to go through my first Manitou and tighten up a bunch of bolts, too. My Premier had a few loose. The last Manitou had none loose. I actually found about 15 to 20 nuts, washer and bolts on top of the underskinning that were just there though! They didn't belong anywhere, its like they just set a handful there and forgot about them. All nice stainless steel! Bonus hardware! Can't beat that...