Just pulled up forward floor board for first time - should have done it sooner. see attached photo of keel bolt forward of mast. Limber hole filled with nasty stuff and plugged up - Arrggghhh! The 6 keel bolts in the middle all look reasonably good. Diver inspected boat 2 months ago and did not report any visible signs of damage on keel.
I am hopeful the keel stud for the forward keel bolt and the hole around it are also in good shape. I just ordered the keel bolt refit kit from Catalina direct and some goodies from Amazon (inspection camera for viewing the aft keel bold under the fuel tank, deep socket set, torque wrench that goes to 105 ft/lbs)
My plan is to clean the forward keel bolt up for complete inspection. If the keel stud and hole look ok, put a new nut/washer on and tighten up to the appropriate torque until next haul out. Planning on next haul for Spring 22.
Next time I haul the boat, I will probably replace all the keel stud nuts on the hard.
Any suggestions to improve this repair plan?
Any tips for cleaning and replacing forward stud nut?
Do I have to remove fuel tank to work on aft keel bolt? How hard is it to remove the fuel tank?
Thanks!
That keel bolt looks fine. My forward keel bolt got covered in a saw dust like material which got wet and caused some crevice corrosion on the nut. I removed the nut and thankfully the stud was in good condition. I replaced the nut with two nuts to cover more of the stud to protect it. Replacing the nuts is probably not necessary if no corrosion is visible. Just torque them to spec when on the hard.
Ron St. Onge
1995 Catalina 36 MKII Hull 1384
Thanks Ron. The nut is completely disintegrated under the epoxy coating I cleaned it off and it looks good so far. still have to work on the washer.
Next time I get down to the boat I am going to dremel out the washer and clean it all up. With a little luck there will be no crevice corrosion under there. Probably going to paint that little section of the bilge too.