De-lamination of engine cover assembly behind stairs

[Alessandro]

Greetings,

Just near to finishing our dry season and a few weeks from the big tropical wet down here so would like to get my problem resolved before the humidity takes over. The laminate on my engine cover (the horse shoe shaped panel that covers the front of the diesel engine and fits beneath and behind the stairs) is peeling off at its foot. I've noticed another topic on this subject but not for this particular location.

Has anyone else experienced this event and if yes did you resolve the problem thru repair or replacement.

Cheers,
Alex

[leigh weiss]

Alex,

I used very thin epoxy and lots of clamps to re-glue the bottom of the engine cover.
Invert the cover and apply with a syringe and let it cure. Give it time to sink in and reapply if necessary. to fill the voids.
My root cause of the delamination was water from the water pump wetting the grove holding the bottom of the cover.
All turned out well.

Lots of luck with the project.

Cheers,

Leigh

[cuthbert]

I had exactly the same problem with the same cause and similar resolution.

I diligently check the engine pre and post sail and never saw any problems with the original Sherwood water pump, no water leaks and nothing untoward. But I was getting a dark stain starting to form at the base of the engine cover and I just ignored it for the longest time. Well eventually the penny dropped that the Sherwood must have been spraying a fine mist in use, not enough to ever see water collecting but the discoloration was indication of it pushing out enough moisture to cause damaging of the wood engine cover.

When I did pull the Sherwood it had a score on the shaft so could not be rebuilt, but as I recall it I never got any indication of a problem other than the discoloration. So I switched to an oberdorfer pump and repaired the wood in a similar fashion with glueing and clamping. The channel is wide enough to allow for a strip to be added to the front face to further limit the delamination problem reoccurring.

Odd thing is that the oberdorfer shows slight discoloration around the vent hole but no moisture anywhere around the channel that the cover sits in.

[JohnNorton]

In the cabin we had some delamination on the bulkhead panneling. The glue used is apparently heat activated. We sucessufully reattahed the lamination by applying heat from a clothes iron set on steam with cloth between the iron and wall surface. Perhaps try this on the engine cover.

[Alessandro]

Thank you everyone for your very helpful comments . Now to fix the de-lamination and then examine the pump. Every time I turn around there is always something else to do, so I just need to stop turning around! Thanks again for your help.

[cuthbert]

I was at the boat this weekend and took a few pics to show how I tackled it.