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Mainstay chainplate pulling...

1978 E34T

Junior Member
I recently aquired a 1978 E34T that has had a rough past 10 years. It is in good shape except the portside chainplate is pulling away from hull and through deck (deck has alittle rot which also needs repair). Any ideas on how to fasten it to the hull better? and would the deck rot cause the chainplate to pop loose?
 

Bill Robbins

Member II
I had to replace the port main bulkhead due to water damage from a leaky chain plate cover. I will reply back in a day or so on how to replace / fix existing bulkhead. In meantime, can you tell me is it the upper/mid chainplate attatching to main bulkhead you are refuring to? Also, have you checked the stb. side upper/ mid chainplate as well as the for and aft lowers? In my old e-35 both the port and stb side upper/mid chainplates were covered with nicely varnished pieces of mohogony that did not allow for a visual inspection. I recomend pulling them off and leaving the chainplates exposed.
Anyway, I will get back to you soon.
Bill
 

1978 E34T

Junior Member
Thanks for the reply! I haven't checked out the mahogony covered plate yet but I will now. The plate that I'm having problems with is the one centered on the mast. I have a few pics of the damage to give you a better idea of what I'm talking about. I could email them to you if you want. The core material of the deck is nothing but goo and is the first thing to get fixed.

Do you think that the deck going soft is why the chainplate is pulling away from the hull and through the deck? I was told that the deck doesn't have anything to do in supporting the chainplate, I think it does.
 
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Bill Robbins

Member II
Hi,
I only have a moment, so I will be brief.
The deck core has nothing to do with the chain plate pulling through.
Look inside your head locker above the sink and you will find the chain plate bolted to the main bulkhead. It is a large piece of metal with at least 8 bolts.
If the chain plate is actualy lifting up, then you will see the bolts pulling through the wood/fiberglass section of the bulkhead. This will get ugly.... To determin the extent of the rot take an ice pick or small screw driver and start poking all around the bulkhead. Don't wory about dinging the wood, you are most likely going to be doing lots of wood work. Poke the entire bulkhead including where it contacts the shower pan. Water collects here and rots the wood.
I had to replace the entire bulkhead.
The ultimate resone there is rot damage is from water entering through the deck at the chain plate cover. In our boats this cover is small and keeping it well bedded to prevent water entry is easy to overlook.
It is very likely that the rest of the smaller bulkheads that secure the forwad lowers have some damage too.
Depending on the extent of the damage the repair will vary from total replacement of bulkhead to treating the wood with penetrating epoxy and then glassing over the entire thing.
I did a good fix on the main bulkhead and left the others for fixing in the near future. As it sadly turns out, my forward chain plate broke durring a coastal voyage near San Francisco and the mast went in the water. I had to cut it loose and lost the whole rig. I was sailing into the wind when the fwd chain plate broke. At the moment the chain plate broke the load went to the port forward lower chainplate and bulkhead. The weekend state of this bulkhead resulted in it quikly failing and the mast went down.
I think if the forward lower did not fail so quikly then I would have had the few seconds needed to sail downwind and put a halyard down on the bow cleat.
Anyway this is a long way to say "don't go sailing without fixing the whole rig. "
As far as the goo between decks goes, leave it for now. It is an easy fix. There are good articals about this process in the archives.
Get a better look at the thing and we can chat more!
Bill :cool:
 

1978 E34T

Junior Member
I should have done a little more research on the terminology of what is what on my boat. I downloaded the E34T brochure from the Specs & Docs section on this website and it makes reference to "massive aluminum knees". One of these "knees" is what I'm having problems with. The brochure also mentions that the deck provides support, so maybe the rotted deck did cause the "knee" to fail. Have you had any problems with these "knees" in the past?

I'm not having problems with the bulkhead & chainplate you are refering to, but I plan to check it next time I'm at the boat. From the experiance you had I can see the need to make sure this whole section, chainplates and "knees", need to repaired ASAP! I' rather keep the mast vertical.

Thanks for your help and I'm sorry about the confusion.
 

Brisdon

Inactive Member
The deck core has nothing to do with the degredation of the chain plate connection but it is part and parcel of the same leakage problem. The chain plate gets it's strength from the plywood bulkhead which will have to have fresh material scarfed into it. For the deck core there is a great thing called penetrating epoxy by Seafit (I think that's the name of the company). You can use it to saturate the deck core and bring strength back. It's a little tricky to get it into the core and not just into the boat, but one can actually get good at that. Good luck.
 

Fred Matzer

New Member
I've been told that not all E 34 Ts were originally built with the "massive aluminum knees" to support the rig--that the knees were a design change to counter excessive hull flexing on the earliest boats. My own E 34 T shows signs of having been either retrofitted with the knees after build, or else the knees having been repaired or reinforced after original installation--the teak trim around them is a slightly different color and the glasswork where they are bonded to the hull is a bit sloppy in places.

On my boat only the forward lower shrouds are supported by the main bulkhead; the cap shrouds and aft lowers go to the aluminum hanging knees, which are glassed to the underside of the deck and continue down the sides of the hull to the tops of the main cabin settees. The knees are glassed to the hull their full length.

Leaks were a frequent nuisance for the former owner--they're mentioned often in old logs I've seen. Routing out soaked balsa deck core, filling with thickened epoxy, and sealing with plenty of 5200 has worked for me.
 

David M Tomasso

New Member
CHAIN PLATES

I have a 1978 30 II with the same chain plates.about 8 years ago I had the same problem and contacted Ericson and they sent me the info on how to fix it.They could not find the drawing for the 30 but sent me the info on the 34.The knee has to have a plate added to the bottom.It has tto have a couple of tangs welded to it and bolted to the bottom of the existing plate and using West system rebed.I still have the drawing and info.If you have a fax number I could send it to you. Dave
 

1978 E34T

Junior Member
Thank you all for answering my questions. It seems as though my problem isn't an uncommon one and may not be that hard to fix.

David,

I PM'd you the fax number, thanks again.
 
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