The first picture shows the bracket I fitted new in 2012. It has been used each summer on Annie B as a charter boat, and now has suffered the usual defects attributed to having a 32 kg engine clamped to it and the twisting effect caused by the engine thrust of the prop at the end of the long leg. These splits are not surface damage but through the thickness of the board.
Let me give you a comparison as to how it should look.
Let me give you a comparison as to how it should look. This is the new one fitted and securely bolted. In past blogs I have mentioned that these engine mounting brackets originally were meant to hold a lightweight 2-stroke British Seagull engine, at about 10kg. The design of the transom casing that is a part of the inner hull moulding was never redesigned to take a much heavier engine, consequently this will be a recurring problem.
Below in the fitting procedure I will outline measures I’ve taken to help with this.
It will be noted that there are splits which go through the thickness of the engine bracket. I have seen instances were owners have tried reinforcing this split line with long screws applied from the top edge! Trust me, it doesn’t work! This split line is serious, the Iroko is very open grain and the small split line is deceptive.
This is the fractured engine mounting bracket. It just took the insertion of a wood chisel and a swift blow from a hammer to split the top section from the lower body. You can now see this very coarse open grain.
The new board comes with all the threaded bolts and studding, 10 mm ply strengthening packers, and large ‘Penny washers’ and nuts.
One can see that the outside face of the aft moulding is in good condition. However, these moulds 40 plus years ago were all ‘laid up’ by hand, so there was never any consistency of the thickness of this glassfibre section of the mould. I have seen thicknesses vary from 3 to 7mm, and this to support just 4 bolts and an engine bracket. So my advice is to use my reinforcing 10mm ply pads on the inside of these 2 faces to give more support to the bracket.
These are the 60 x 10 mm ply packers in place. I firstly use an adhesive to stick these onto the inside wall of the moulding; left overnight they will have cured.
From the outside I can now present the mounting bracket to the back of the casing, picking up the 2 top bolt holes, drilling in through and penetrating the ply packers. With the 2 top bolts through and now supporting the bracket, one can now drill through and penetrate the 2 lower holes, penetrating also the ply packers.
Once this is done it’s time to wriggle again inside and fit the ‘Penny washers’ and nuts. At this stage a spare pair of hands will be a good idea from the outside to hold the outside eyebolt head and lower heads.
Job done!