The Strange Case of the Separating Deck Plate

Just when you think it's time for the boat to show some appreciation for all the big things we do for it, it comes up with a little thing to make you crazy.

Go to open the Water Fill deck plate and it comes apart in your hand.

I suppose I thought my fill caps were forged by titans in some grand furnace in the sky. Or milled from a solid block of Titanium down in Irvine, back when men were men and Ericsons were, well, so expensive they went out of business. But, as they used to say, noooo.

I can't even find evidence of a tack weld to hold that slotted plate on top of the thread body. Both pieces are stainless. How the devil were they attached?

Anyhow, they suddenly weren't attached anymore.

I went to West Marine and bought the standard replacement, which appeared to match exactly on the closest inspection possible, as the attentive salesman agreed.

Of course, it didn't. After screwing it in, you could pull it back out with two fingers.

Many of us have been through this before, I'm certain. It can be absurdly, ridiculously difficult to find the right fitting for these ancient, anonymous fixtures, and at least once in the past I had to replace the entire fitting just to get one with a cap that fit. And it was a massive irritating PITA, twenty years ago, with screws that broke and a hose that wouldn't pull up to receive a new hose clamp, and months before I finally got around to actually getting the duct tape off the water fill and a real screw-plate installed.

So this time I just drilled holes in the old plate and reattached it to the screw body with bolts.

I still don't know how the original was made, or how the slotted plate was made to stick to the body without any apparent mechanical connection at all.

Speaking of deck plates (slightly off topic).

All, I am in receipt of two very cool Wilcox Crittenden 4" bronze deck plates that match perfectly two that I already have which I installed in the boat and have been there for years. I swear, sometimes I have to wonder what the factory was thinking when it came to completely limiting access to stuff. In their infinite wisdom, they made it impossible to gain access to four of the eight bronze steering cable sheaves. I had to cut holes in the coaming to get to two of them (the ones that have been in there for years) and only last week did another NOS pair finally show up for me to snag on eBay. I plan to install them port and starboard into the non-skid of the aft cockpit seat, either side of the quadrant hatch so as to be able to get at the last two sheaves that until now have never seen the light of day, or were even accessible at all since the day they were installed at the factory. There's something nice about having everything match and now they will. Glyn Judson, E31 hull #55, Marina del Rey CA

Breathing new life into your original deck fill cover.

Christian, You remind me of a repair I made to a pair of pinhole leaks in my galley sink. It was one of the first things I think I did just after getting our boat 20 years ago this coming June. I drilled out the holes and filled them with two #6 stainless steel screws, properly bedded with flat washers on either side of the hole and a self locking nut on the under side. They still hold tight today without any other holes appearing. I'd love to know just how only those two spots rusted through given that the previous four owners kept her in fresh water for only a part of each year. Glyn, E31 hull #55, Marina del Rey CA

I'm fortunate to have deck fills with the standard 1 1/4" - 11.5 NPT threads so my spare caps are PVC pipe plugs. Other deck fills have 1 1/2" - 11.5 threads, also standard, and still others have bastard threads.

Epoxy

Exactly the same failure occurred on the deck-fill on my E35. There was evidence of two tack welds. I epoxied it back together again with good luck so far.

My Diesel fill was The same odd cap style as yours Christian, I could never get it to seal well because the threads wee cut poorly. It would also get quite stuck if tightened enough to keep the water out, but it never came apart. Just lots of water in the diesel tank. I only had to anchor outside the breakwater in a bad storm once because of it though... (implied sarcastic laughter)
I replaced the base last year so I can keep a modern cap in the hole..... heck maybe even a spare just for fun. I assume my other two deck fills had been replaced by the PO because they were young and fresh and had standard threaded caps in their holes.

Rumkin had a small O ring in the gas fill cap that let water in when I bought her, I replaced the O ring with a fatter one and solved the leak. I guess I should check the gas fill cap on GettinAir also.

On my 1 1/4" fill caps which are the same design as Christian's I use a 1 1/2" OD x 3/32" O-rings which have to be replaced every year or two because the sun attacks the neoprene. This is at 44* N latitude. I would imagine that you guys in the sunny south or on the Redneck Riviera would need to change them much more frequently.

I'm not sure that a larger O-ring would help as it would be more exposed to the sun.

The O ring that was on Rumkin was not fat enough to fill the grove so it never made contact with the filler neck to seal.