During a long run in the ICW I noticed one of my Lenco trim tabs had broken off the stern and was skimmming on the water attached only by the actuator. I shut down the boat and lifted the tab out by the actuator and secured it with a docking line up and out of the water. The good news is I caught it in time and all of the parts are present and the actuator works. The 7 spot welds failed because I didn’t have zincs on the tabs and have kept the boat in the water this summer. Can I just drill some holes and use SS bolts and lock nuts to re-secure the tab to the hinge flange that is still mounted on the stern? I don’t know a welder and it seems like it would be strong enough, simple and an inexpensive fix.
Ther might be some cavation from the humps the bolts might produce. But it sure would hold better than the welds. try and if it doesn’t preform as it should you can still weld it and weld up the holes.
yes, that will work fine. you will get a little more drag from the bolt heads.
www.teamcharlestonmarine.com
www.bombislandboats.com
IF I RESPOND IN ALL CAPS, ITS NOT ON PURPOSE, AND I AM NOT YELLING
Thanks Boatpoor and Chris. Wanted to make sure I wasn’t missing something. I’ll add the zincs too, never considered that each tab would need one but obviously they do.
quote:
Originally posted by chris Vyes, that will work fine. you will get a little more drag from the bolt heads.
www.teamcharlestonmarine.com
www.bombislandboats.com
IF I RESPOND IN ALL CAPS, ITS NOT ON PURPOSE, AND I AM NOT YELLING
If you can find them, use truss head bolts. Less drag.
Bob Van Gundy
803-727-4069
Custom Aluminum Fabrication
Are there supposed to be zinc anodes on trim tabs?
Fishing Nerd
“skilled labor isn’t cheap, cheap labor isn’t skilled”
Yes, if the boat is kept in the water. I never heard of that before but once mine failed I did some research and it popped up all over the place. I keep my boat in the water 3-4 months out of the year, during the summer. The tabs are bottom painted and are showing no corrosion, but the welds seem to be the weak spot so they failed.
Copy that, thanks for the insight!
Fishing Nerd
“skilled labor isn’t cheap, cheap labor isn’t skilled”
Just to close this thread out, we were able to re-attach the broken trim tab using #8 SS bolts with lock nuts. I probably could have gone up one size in the bolt but didn’t want to drill away too much material. When we pulled the boat we saw the other tab was halfway disengaged as well. We put 5 or 6 bolts in the fully broken tab and 4 in the other one. The tabs was pitted a little from corrosion as well. Thanks for the advice. Fix took maybe $15 in hardware and an hour but the lesson was learned. Pancake zinc anodes need to go on tabs when boat is kept in the water!
My Lenco tabs have done the same thing as yours and my boat has never been kept in the water except for a week each summer at Edisto.
The spot welds on mine just started to give up, nothing to do with corrosion. I was fortunate to catch mine before they came completely loose like yours. I used 4mm SS button head machine screws with nyloc nuts. I put 5 in each tab and no problem.
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