Pontoon Boat & Deck Boat Forum

When underskinning what do you do about the floor bolts? Just overlap at every brace measure and drill holes? Thanks

Tom

Your boat must have different braces than most I have seen, mine has a C channel type brace, no deck bolt heads are in the way, just a flat surface to drill into.

Same here..

Mine has aluminum tubes that run from toon to toon with bolts running thru them that obviously have locknuts on the end??? Any other crest owners who have underskin?

Tom

Mine just has I beams on 2' centers. I used 1/2" self tappers.

But... to answer your question, What would I do if I had bolts in the way...hmmm. Well the purpose of the whole idea is to stop the majority of the water from hitting the beams. So even a one inch gap here and there isn't too big of a deal. Mine was scrap so I didn't get to cut it to the perfect 22 1/4 width I needed. It was about a half inch shy on both sides so I split the difference when installing it. Granted... the more coverage the better. If I had to deal with bolts I'd maybe look at installing it in smaller sections that would be easier to work with as far as marking bolt holes and such. And cut around the bolt heads large enough to prevent a redo. Makes sense to me that a little squirt of water on a beam is far better than a whole wake across the length of it. I really don't see how you could loose on this one.

busatom wrote:Mine has aluminum tubes that run from toon to toon with bolts running thru them that obviously have locknuts on the end??? Any other crest owners who have underskin?

Tom

Wow. That sounds like it may be a paint to underskin then. I would say then that your best bet is to drill out where each floor bolt goest through, but wow is that going to take some time.

I've been debating how to do this on my Crest as well. It' does not look to me like the deck bolts are long enough to put the skin under them and still leave enough thread for the nut to get a good hold. My current plan is drill holes in the underskin that are large enough for the nuts to come through, then use tapcon screws to secure the underskinning.

SO I ordered 3 4X8 sheets on 6061 .050 aluminum to underskin my crest. I think it should work good, but drilling the holes for the floorboard bolts is gonna suck ass! I looked at the frp, and who knows it may hold up, but I was able to crack it I thought quite easily, so I went with the permanent fix, not the bandaid.

Tom

busatom wrote:SO I ordered 3 4X8 sheets on 6061 .050 aluminum to underskin my crest. I think it should work good, but drilling the holes for the floorboard bolts is gonna suck ass! I looked at the frp, and who knows it may hold up, but I was able to crack it I thought quite easily, so I went with the permanent fix, not the bandaid.

Tom

Let us know how it goes.... with pictures if you can. I've decided to hold off until winter for this mod.

I have a scissor trailer but think it may be easier to install in the water??? Wanted to wait till winter but cold here in Michigan ! And I wanna polish & sharkhyde da toons in da winter months!

Tom

busatom wrote:I have a scissor trailer but think it may be easier to install in the water??? Wanted to wait till winter but cold here in Michigan ! And I wanna polish & sharkhyde da toons in da winter months!

Tom

Install in the water?? are you talking about the underskinning? If you got a scissor trailer just crank it down onto some wood blocks and pull the trailer out from under the boat.

Check out my boat it leave it on casters all the time.