Replaced my anchor locker drain fitting due to leaks

[RobbieO]

Use popsicle sticks or PLASTIC shims (like for shimming a door/window). Those will work better when you try to smooth out the 5200. Not great, just better. Nothing really works great with 5200, you simply have varying degrees of how lucky you were with your application, considering the material.

I don't know if the popsicle sticks have some sort of coating, or if they're just sanded so fine that they don't stick as much as wood shims, but the wood shims were a disaster - stuck to those like crazy, and super difficult to smooth anything out. The plastic shims were at least 75% better for smoothing out 5200. Harder to cut for the right-sized piece than the wood shims, but any tooling is a compromise with that stuff.

That 5200 shit needs to be outlawed. It's great for getting everywhere except where it's needed. I'm strictly 4200 now. (I think I used 5200 on my scupper, however). It sticks to you like child support.

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

I used 4200 on all my other projects since I didn’t want those things to be permanent, this time though I didn’t mind using the more permanent 5200. To me this stuff is like anti seize… it gets everywhere lol!

 

[drewkaree]

lots and lots of cheap gloves, replace them often, even if you've only had them on for a hot second and you have to back away from something...my new thought is, is there a possibility that I'll get this crap somewhere I don't want it. If the answer is yes, off come the gloves that have become infected with 5200. I also have an old 5-gallon bucket with a trash bag inside it. I went without the trash bag at first, and after the carnage was disposed of, someone went to wipe out the white streaks, and proceeded to get it on a few things before I noticed and yelled at them to stop right in their tracks before they touched another thing.

4200 is the same, but for some reason, it doesn't seem to be as problematic.

Anti-seize, agreed. The only thing worse than the silver anti-seize is the copper anti-seize. They're the 4200/5200 equivalents!

@FSH 210 Sport I really dig the angled shim you made! That's some fine engineering right there!

For all those who were asking about whether they should leave the OEM fitting, or silicone, or whatever other method - take a look at @FSH 210 Sport and the fiberglass surrounding the gunshot wound in his anchor locker. Notice how dirty and wet-looking it is? Seems like that open sore acts like a sponge, taking in all the garbage from the water and spreading it in the fiberglass layer. That's why I recommend skipping the silicone, and going with a new fitting. At the very least, you should use a gelcoat patch paste instead of silicone to deal with the opening. You can redrill or sand away excess, vs trying to pull/scratch/cut/whatever on silicone.

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

Totally agree on the gloves! I found these nitrile gloves at an auto parts store when I was in Minnesota picking up my boat. The surface has this grippy cross hatching that really does improve the grip. They’re not cheap, but they do work pretty good. I use these gloves whenever I put fuel in my truck, boat etc…and anytime I handle chemicals.

Amazon.com: SAS Safety 66573 Astro Grip Powder-Free Nitrile Disposable Glove, Large, Pack of 100 : Health & Household

Buy SAS Safety 66573 Astro Grip Powder-Free Nitrile Disposable Glove, Large, Pack of 100: Gloves - Amazon.com ✓ FREE DELIVERY possible on eligible purchases

www.amazon.com

Small safety segue..As a youngster I handled all kinds of chemicals, solvents, fuels etc.. bare handed, once I was in my late 20’s I learned just how bad a lot of this stuff was and some of it never leaves your body, that’s when I started wearing gloves whenever I handle chemicals of any kind, and a lot of times I put a fan behind me to keep from breathing the fumes.

Love the 5 gallon bucket thing! I do the same for messy projects!

The shim was my friends idea, I just got the pvc and made the piece. He had a small business of marine repair, installation and refit, he worked mostly on off shore type boats like Hatteras sport fishers and such. He has been invaluable with the projects I have done on my boat. He seems to always have a solution for anything boat wise in his hip pocket.. I will say if one was going to make one of these shims be sure and use the grey schedule 80 pvc pipe and leave at least 1/4” at the shortest point to keep the plastic from splitting.

The shotgun blast opening is a great way to describe it! I just replaced my generation 1 iPhone SE with a Gen 3 one and the camera is a lot better and enabled me to get those pictures.

I may not have been clear before, after completing several projects I was dismayed at how much water was coming out of my boat this year. I did find a leak on my live well plumbing caused by me doing the raw water wash down upgrade, I had disconnected the fill hose from the fill pump and had inadvertently loosened the fill fitting on the back of the live well-that was a joy to correct. Fixed that and the drain line leak at the T fitting etc…. But was still getting more water than I liked out of the bilge. I had checked the anchor locker fitting before and thought I was good as the fitting came all the way through, unlike the bow rider boats where the fitting was so short it didn’t make it all the way into the anchor locker (@drewkaree first post in this thread) It wasn’t until this thread popped up again that got me thinking to check it again and I found that there was a nice little gap all the way around. This was made worse by the addition of a proper anchor and chain lowering the bow into the water further. As I mentioned before, I found some little plugs in the lure bargain bin at Scheels one day and hoped to put the plug on the inside, but it’s too big to fit on the inside. I’ll get a pic of them later today and post. I do think I’m just going to run my OEM drain plug on the next outing and see if this anchor locker fitting solved the problem. I do understand about production and affordability of our boats, but I do think Yamaha could have put a proper fitting in the anchor locker that has a nut on the inside, or, at the very least put some sealer on the inside, doing so during production would make being able to get a fitting in there with a nut on it a simple affair. If this solves my water in the bilge problem I will be sending Yamaha an email with pics and my fix as well as the link to this thread.

At the end of the day, if all the leak chasing got me to fix the other leaks first and this is the cherry on top of the whip cream on the hot fudge Sunday then it will be worth it! I’ve got some adventure boating plans for multiple days on the water far from the dock and my truck/trailer and having a tight ship is important to me.

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

Here’s the stopper / plug that fits into the thru hull associated with this fix.

 

[RobbieO]

Here’s the stopper / plug that fits into the thru hull associated with this fix.

View attachment 179999

I thought our anchor drain holes were 3/8” ?

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

I thought our anchor drain holes were 3/8” ?

The thru hull listed in this thread is what I bought and this plug fits perfectly… the oem one may be 3/8”. It didn’t survive extraction though so I can’t get an accurate measurement for you.

 

[drewkaree]

Totally agree on the gloves! I found these nitrile gloves at an auto parts store when I was in Minnesota picking up my boat. The surface has this grippy cross hatching that really does improve the grip. They’re not cheap, but they do work pretty good. I use these gloves whenever I put fuel in my truck, boat etc…and anytime I handle chemicals.

Amazon.com: SAS Safety 66573 Astro Grip Powder-Free Nitrile Disposable Glove, Large, Pack of 100 : Health & Household

Buy SAS Safety 66573 Astro Grip Powder-Free Nitrile Disposable Glove, Large, Pack of 100: Gloves - Amazon.com ✓ FREE DELIVERY possible on eligible purchases

www.amazon.com

Save yourself a few bucks and check Amazon for "GloveWorks" gloves. Same texture, but $5-7 less per box, depending on size. Yours are 7 mil, GloveWorks has 6 or 8 mil. The 6 mil are $20, and the 8 mil are $22 as of this writing, while your link shows me a price of $27+. I use the 8 mil for doing any car repair, but for 98% of any other uses, I go with the 6 mil which seem to be rugged enough. If not, I switch out to the 8mil. For 5200 work, I get gloves from work (the white box pictured below), so I have no idea how much these are, only that I know they SHOULD be cheap, and slide on easily. I think we get them for about $5-7/box. If the cost is nuts, go with something else - I use 3-5 BOXES per week, and they're reasonably decent as long as you get a nice fit. The orange gloves are the exact same as the GloveWorks - they seem like they may have been bought up by them, or simply rebranded. Those are the 8mil gloves

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

Okay,

A bit of a follow up.. I finally found the source of my last leak, it was the scupper that I installed to replace one of the oem plastic ones, this one for the live well drain. I had relied on the silicone gasket that came with the fitting, but the hull is very uneven back there and where it was leaking was on the back side of where I could see. I had found it the other day on the water using my Hobo Kelley arm to reach down through the access hatch and feel around and wa lah, there was water on the scupper.. pulled it out and slathered 5200 on the outside, and put 4200 on again on the flange nut.

Went out the other day and was on the water for 6 hours which is about half my usual time on the water, and when I pulled the plug at the end of the day, not a drop, zero, zilch point poo poo of water came out. I’m quite happy about that!

I’ve been running the plug in the anchor locker drain as I don’t use my anchor very often. I did use it for my over night stay on the lake and when I pulled that plug at home a little bit of water came out. I left the plug out and rinsed the rode down throughly while in the locker and let the water drain out the thru hull, and left the locker hatch open to allow the rode to dry out.

Thanks again to @drewkaree and everyone else who has replied to this thread!

 

[RobbieO]

Okay,

A bit of a follow up.. I finally found the source of my last leak, it was the scupper that I installed to replace one of the oem plastic ones, this one for the live well drain. I had relied on the silicone gasket that came with the fitting, but the hull is very uneven back there and where it was leaking was on the back side of where I could see. I had found it the other day on the water using my Hobo Kelley arm to reach down through the access hatch and feel around and wa lah, there was water on the scupper.. pulled it out and slathered 5200 on the outside, and put 4200 on again on the flange nut.

Went out the other day and was on the water for 6 hours which is about half my usual time on the water, and when I pulled the plug at the end of the day, not a drop, zero, zilch point poo poo of water came out. I’m quite happy about that!

I’ve been running the plug in the anchor locker drain as I don’t use my anchor very often. I did use it for my over night stay on the lake and when I pulled that plug at home a little bit of water came out. I left the plug out and rinsed the rode down throughly while in the locker and let the water drain out the thru hull, and left the locker hatch open to allow the rode to dry out.

Thanks again to @drewkaree and everyone else who has replied to this thread!

That's the only place I've used 5200. Don't ever plan on removing that scupper.

 

[YoDaddy292]

That's the only place I've used 5200. Don't ever plan on removing that scupper.

Same ! Looks like slip from 5200 but it’s glare (after I took the pic I went to wipe it off ).