oem cleat issues

[davisr]

Does anyone have cleats that look like these? I pulled these off today. It was impossible to turn the screw heads, so I went down below. In the chain locker, I was easily able to remove the nuts. Went back on deck. Still impossible to get any movement from the screws. Went down below. Tapped the screws with a hammer and they easily moved upward. Went back on deck. Easily pulled the cleat-screw assembly from the deck. It appears that the screws were installed with some sort of adhesive, perhaps at the Ericson yard.

Has anyone experienced the same sort of issues? What's puzzling is that the cleats appear to be aluminum and the screws appear to be stainless steel. Seems that in 37 years there would be some corrosion going on inside the cleats.

Thanks for any tips,
Roscoe

 

[Emerald]

They are corroded together. You can try something like PB Blaster, but it may very well take heat to break it apart.

 

[Glyn Judson]

Frozen screws.

Roscoe, David's partially right. Partially because I don't give you good odds that those stainless steel screws will ever come free from their aluminum tomb. The metals are too dissimilar and the aluminum always pays the price in the form of that white powdery oxide. It eventually fills any gaps between the metals and freezes everything up. The only hope is that with that PB Blaster (I've never used it myself but all the guys on this list just rave about it) and a lot of heat from a propane torch might free the screws up as you pound on the threaded end to further dislodge it. My best suggestion would be to measure the distance of the screws from one another and launch a search for new cleats that match or are darned close to that screw pattern. It can be done, I did just that on our former boat, a 1979 E25+. Good luck, Glyn Judson, E31 hull #55, Marina del Rey, CA

 

[C Masone]

I removed two cleats from my boom when I repainted that were siezed like that, neve got the screws out, one had a screw that came out the other woldn't, I just unscrewd the whole cleat with the remaing screw still in, then tried everything to remove the screw from the cleat with no luck. Buy a couple of nice shiny new cleats on ebay, much simpler.

 

[davisr]

I finally got around to trying to do something with these cleats. Cleaned up the bottoms and then hit em with PB Blaster. Let em sit. Then hit the tops. No luck yet. Might move on to heat tomorrow.

Roscoe

 

[clp]

Hmm. Maybe a shop press? I can see myself trying that, the cleat upside down, with a socket, or pipe nipple under it. If I had already frailed it to death, it would certainly be my next try. A feller should be slow and careful with that torch, aluminum being what it is. Of course if it's terminally frozen, you've not much to lose..

 

[Sven]

Drill press ?

If I had your problem and access to the tools ...

I'd cut the screws/bolts off underneath the cleats. Then I'd center punch the screw/bolt head from the top to get a good starting point. The next step would be to fasten the cleat in a drill press, centered on the center punch. Yet another "the next step" would be to drill a small diameter hole all the way through the old screw. The final (?) step would be to drill through the same pilot hole with the size needed for the new screw/bolt. The question mark is there because you might have to re-countersink the hole too unless all the drilling heat and action gets out the old screw/bolt head.

But it would be easier to buy a new set of cleats



-Sven

 

[Guy Stevens]

More of the same

First PB Blaster (Tm) and heat, then drill through the middle of them from the top down generally works best, depending on the screw heads.

Don't press them or hammer on them if you can avoid it, they will generally break if you do. They are cast aluminum after all which is not very impact resistant.

Guy

 

[davisr]

Thanks for the tips fellas. My neighbor's going to drill the holes for the new handrails I just made on his press, so I think we'll hit the cleats at the same time.

Regards,
Roscoe