Pontoon Boat & Deck Boat Forum

I was gifted a 2004 Crest 20' pontoon boat. In the process of turning it into a sandbar party barge. Each of the tubes has 3 nylon vent plugs on top. One was broken, so I attempted to removed it and the whole head snapped off. The next one I tried did as well. Unfortunately the clearance to access them is limited due to the deck. Looking for ideas to remove and replace them? Could I just seal the openings with some marine silicone? Though about using a heat gun to maybe soften up the nylon and try to then back it out or use some quick torch work and melt the nylon out. I imagine this is not a unique issue to me. Anyone have any remedies, I am open to suggestions. Thank you for your input in advance. - Jon

I was restoring a tracker for a friend, same deal, red plastic plugs, I heated the area up with my micro torch then just dug it out, I think I may have used an easy out that would fit in the hole after the square tore off, probably just drilled it a little then did the heat and easy out, they all came clean, replaced with 3/8 NPT brass plugs if I remember the size correctly.

Can you mix brass and aluminum?

Put some pipe thread dope on them, and call it a day. I have brass ones in the back/bottom of all three tubes on my tritoon, and they stay submerged when in the water (saltwater), haven't seen any corrosion to date. There were steel ones in there from the OEM, they got nasty quick. You could use PVC plugs, but the same thing will happen if and when you ever want to remove them in the future.

well 3 of the 4 have been changed out no problem by melting out the old nylon plugs with a heat gun. Unfortunately on the 4th I think there was some residual nylon that cooled and was still in the threads, when I went to put the brass plug in the residual nylon caused it to misthread about halfway down. When I backed it out it damaged some of the plugs. I'm just going to fill that one with some silicone, expoxy or something of that sort.

just chase the hole with the correct size NPT Tap, what size were the plugs you bought, 3/8" NPT by chance?

https://www.mcmaster.com/#2525a114/=1cnjexb

That Tap worked like a charm. Thanks for the info

that's why we're all here, glad it worked out