Is the Pilot House designed to be removed?

[rnummi]

It sure seems that way. Think of how easy a repower would be

[Beta Don]

I seriously doubt it - There must be some fasteners you can't see going up through the deck into the walls of the pilot-house

I did my own repower - I used an all terrain forklift with a long pole attached to lift out the old engine from the back of the boat and I installed the new Yanmar the same way - Old engine out and new one sat in took only about an hour or so . . . . though there was a delay of a few days in between for me to repaint the entire engine room while it was empty

Don

[rnummi]

Do , look at the PH pics in other posts. Wax paper goes right underneath all PH lower edges and is taped up on the other side (aka their ain't nothin there holdin it down). Also, does anyone have pics of their forward cabin overhead w headliner removed? I have a few questions for you. Actually if you are running around sans headliner I really have questions that you could help out with.

[JT48348]

I always say: More cowbell? No We need more pilothouse threads. Say Whaaaaat?

Yes I have my headliner completely off. I have all the wood off. All the fittings off. All the electrical and plumbing out. I have a bare hull except for the engine and helm. What do you need to know?

The pilothouse is not bolted to the deck that I can see. But on my boat it's attached somehow and hull/deck/ pilothouse joint is solid and caulked. It is possible some sort of fasteners for the pilothouse are glassed over but I have not seen anything that indicates this.

I do not believe the pilothouse is meant to come off. I believe you have major damage due to Albins construction and possible past modifications. I believe the engine will come out without removing the pilothouse. I will document it this summer.

As I said before. There are many entry points for water under the liner & you cannot ensure a leak proof boat without removing the liner in my opinion. And even if you did, you probably have damage or mold under the headliner. From what I have seen there's very little bedding or caulking used. Things were screwed into the deck and headliner with no sealant often puncturing a core and allowing water to enter. There's poor lamination. Poor layup. Half layup. No layup. No backing plates. Sometimes failed thru-bolting. Fiberglassed backing plates buried and covered by glass. Fiberglassed nuts and bolts. Handrails mounted inverted nuts and bolts.

You will only know where you fall on the spectrum once you have the headliner off. It's going to be a variety and a grab bag of problems. I base this on what I'm seeing in my boats construction and other boats. Lots of variation.

Find a way to anchor your pilothouse to the deck and glass or caulk the joint with 3m5200. If that won't work just fiberglass it. Cover the joint with the original trim. Problem solved.

[rnummi]

I believe you are absolutely right. Literally an air gap all around the pilot house. No damage that I can see. Bottom 6 inches of core around entire pilot house was rotted away. Because I had aft access to sides of PH I slid fully coated pressure treated fence slats all the way in one on top of the other and poured epoxy in through holes drilled into the good core thus encasing the slats and recreating solid pilot house sides. In order to stop the epoxy from draining out all over the place, I slid a five foot long piece of wax paper lengthwise under both sides (ergo no screws etc) and taped EM up. Poured epoxy, removed wax paper. Rock solid. In front I had no access to slide anything in, I had my brother push from inside out on lower edge slid wax paper under and taped both sides (again note absence of anything restricting wax paper). Poured epoxy (which as a side benefit perfectly filled the corner voids) which I had blue taped.

Literally the only thing fastening the PH to the deck was two screws on either side. I had removed all others. These screws are the first two forward ones holding the exterior side PH handholds in place (if you look, these are the ones that enter the cabin outside in). I had removed the other screws and was able to slide blue tape under handhold to seal holes). You can now push the PH sides back and forth about an inch. The only thing holding Em down was the trim. Vertically screwed into deck from above on interior side, and screwed from outside lower PH into trim on exterior. No, repeat no, screws or 5200 holding P or Stbd PH sides to deck. Same deal up front. Originally, stainless steel screws were inserted across front lower edge every 8-12 inches of PH from outside in. These were then covered by trim strip. These weren't "bolts". They just screwed lower edge of PH to lip created where chart dashboard falls away to bow. Yep it was "caulked" on inside between dashboard and pilot house but that was merely cosmetic sealing interior from exterior of PH.

There is no, repeat no, structural L bracket, interior screws or bolts, nada. I need you to crawl in your cabin look up and identify how PH is attached to boat. I know I'm not crazy. There isn't any "damage". Only explanation is that someone forgot to glue down the pilot house on my boat. Trim screws have hold the hold thing in place lo these many years. Yes virginia, you can slide a putty knife clear under you PH and deck all the way around.

That being said, I'm going to go buy lengths of L angle iron (stainless steel). (Remember I live down street from Don's Marine Salvage). Screw angle stainless steel to deck then bolt through the now rock solid PH.

Strange odyssey..... Now fixed.

Question Two: if I don't replace all thirty or so screws across lower front of PH, and I drill through where they were, what's on the other side in cabin interior? Wood, void? Ideally, I would oversize the former screws entry point, epoxy, the holes, buy a strip of stainless, match the former screw holes and create a "sandwich" of the PH to the liner = Stainless strip, gel coat, exterior fiberglass skin, solid epoxy poured core, interior fiberglass skin, caulked gap between PH and liner, liner, interior of boat, stainless fender washer, nut.

Funny thing retrospectively, the whole thing is like the old Mercedes Benz convertible liftoff hardtop. Just mount a sling in your boathouse, in winter keep PH on, in summer lift it off, instant diesel motor runabout.

The whole journey is illustrative of what happens when you take a perfect design (the A25), give it to a Committee and tell em, cut corners, squeeze every dime out of it, make it look good on outside. Tell everybody it's the same as the original. Make no mistake folks, I love this boat and it ain't gonna beat me. It's going to be just as good as the A25 by the time we're through. Forgive my rant, I'm in SLC and my body is on eastern time.

I poured a gallon of epoxy filling the voids in the two sides. The Sides are now rock solid. I had my brother lift the back edge of PH which allowed me to remove wax paper creating a perfect lower edge. In effect he wax paper created the bottom of the "mold" the PH skins created the sides, and I just kept pouring layer after layer until it filled.

[JT48348]

All I heard was

"Pilothouse....screws...cowbell...epoxy...cowbell..."

Keep up the good work!

[rnummi]

Obsession... It's a terrible thing.

[JT48348]

Lol!

I have a question for you rnummi. I see a variation on ur pilothouse. You have handrails below the side pilothouse sliding Windows. When you say the pilothouse is attached with two screws by the hand rails what are you referring to.

Most A27s from photos have handrails on the roof, fore and aft cabin tops, and the leading aft edge of the pilothouse by cockpit. Where your handrails are I have interior hand rails and exterior name sign boards. My pilothouse seems glued with 3m5200 or maybe life caulk at the pilothouse deck. My trim was screwed into the exterior pilothouse with 3/4" #8 screws. Maybe 8 screws to a window. There was some caulking of some sort behind most teak window/pilothouse trim.

You mentioned 30 screws across the bottom of the pilothouse. What are you referring to?

[rnummi]

The front exterior of pilothouse had screws holding the thing on all across front. When I removed trim, I thought I meet be able to insert a filler from the bottom as I could slightly pull away the skin of pilothouse (recall lower 6 inches was mulch I removed w L shaped hand saw).

The handholds are the exterior side ones on either side of pilothouse (exterior). The backs have screws from interior to exterior handhold. The only ones you can't get to are the two forward ones. (They must exit from inside the cabin to the handhold) near as I can tell.

[JT48348]

That's unique. Have not seen that before. Ur handholds look lost.

[rnummi]

My bad #2 the port and starboard exterior handholds were bolted from inside to exterior via the little nuts in handhold. I was interchangeably using the term "screw" and "bolt".

Reiterating that the forward two handhold bolts were inaccessible due to being behind headliner.

[Beta Don]

To the best of my knowledge, all 1984 A27's have the handholds under the side windows on the pilothouse. Mine does and so do the other 4 or 5 '84's I've seen, attached as RNummi indicated. Mine have been changed out for ones made from brown Starboard like material - A poor choice

Don

[Mark Deeser]

I removed old caulk from inside and outside of pilot house, removed screws and picked it straight up. Made a small frame inside house an used roll around floor jack. Rebeded with Butul tape and set it back down. Pulled the old Nissan out by use of a boom truck, guy came to marina pulled engine an took it to my house ( 2 blocks away ) cost $175. Very easy job, he could reach out about 30 feet. Thanks, Mark.

[rnummi]

Wow! I just knew it! I'm digging around going it can't just be plopped on there and screwed in w the light screws.... You really really don't wanna be in heavy weather in the A27. I think I'm going to bolt this sucker down. Thanks for confirming what my own eyes were telling me. Question: was there only one wire run for the cockpit light, w/s wipers? Seems like the whole run is down the quarter post between pilot window and starboard sliders?

[JT48348]

While working on pulling out my engine, I ended up having to remove my pilothouse. My boat is a 1986 model. Here's what I found:

Under the exterior trim of the pilothouse, I found 3m5200 type sealant all around the pilothouse base, and especially at the front two corners. Not sure its 3m5200, but maybe soemthing similar. It may have been done during a prior refit based on the sloppy way it was put on?? There was a clear fiberglass flange on both sides of the polithouse, approximately 1" wide that sets on the deck combing of the lower hull. The piltohouse was attached on each side by four to six #8 stainless screws. On the front of the pilothouse there were another six #8 screws that attached the pilothouse vertically to the lower deck combing. In addtion there's a #10 screw with washer on each side, approximately 12" from the front croners, that screws the piltohouse into the lower deck combing. The lower deck combing I'm describing is the molding that makes up the base of the pilothouse, and outlines the forward helm position, helm countertop & sides.

This method of attachment is very simimlar to the pilothouse sailboat I just did, with the exception I through bolted the pilothouse instead of screwed. On re-install I would probably try to throughbolt at least each corner, in addition to larger screws.

My piltohouse was attached very well, and I wouldn't have done this except I needed to have verticle access to pull the engine. On my boat, possible becuase its a mid=80's the pilothouse was plenty strong. It took some work to cut throught the sealant, remove the screws and then break the piltohouse free. Once free I was able to shift the piltohouse forward approximately 3 feet, which opened up the overhead for the engine compartment, allowing a boom jib from a truck to pull out the engine. Resealed, and screwed or through bolted, even in just a few olaces, I have no doubt the pilothouse would be plenty strong.

The piltohouse is heavy, too heavy to take off the deck, but it can be moved around, slid forward and aft.