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Portlight leak on my E30+, questions on rebedding

Epenn

1985 E30+, San Francisco, CA
Hey all!

I've read a couple of the portlight threads on this forum, but still thought I'd put my specific case out there for advice.

This is the portlight in the head. It is a Lewmar old style opening portlight size 1. I have removed the plastic trim and the inner metal rim. It was difficult to see where the leak was coming from with the metal rim attached. Without the rim, it is clear that the leak is coming through one of the screw holes that attaches it. I have circled the location in an attached image. I have already replaced the gasket that touches the window pane and the leak wasn't affected.

I am considering a few possible next steps:
A. Add sealant to the gaps between the upper and lower halves of the outside frame.
B. Remove and re-bed window
C. Remove window and replace
D. Do something about the surrounding wood with water damage

Questions:
1. What would you do to address this?
2. How would I remove the damaged wood panel? I unscrewed some surrounding trim but even that seemed to be glued to the headliner or something. What would you do if anything about this damage?
3. What sealant would you use on the gaps in the outside frame? Is it as easy as taping off and just squirting the sealant into the gap? Or does the window need to be removed?
4. I've read a few articles on removing the window but I am intimidated. It looks like it would be much easier to remove it from inside by taking a blade to the caulking around the inside of the frame (see pics). Why doesn't anyone try to remove them from the inside?
5. There is a white power that came out with some of the screws. What is this? Some sort of corrosion?

Thanks a lot for any advice. I'm a new boat owner and haven't done much handiwork in my life up to now and having a boat has been a great opportunity to learn.

Evan
 

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Loren Beach

O34 - Portland, OR
Senior Moderator
Blogs Author
The white powder is aluminum corrosion, and it can often bind the ss screw threads tightly to the alum. frame. Not good.
When I recently removed and replaced all of our OEM Lewmar's, a few screws broke off. (sigh)

Someone, likely one or more prior owners of your boat, has not done any maintenance to re-bed the port, and to reseal the little turn pieces that lock it closed and (sometimes) to seal up the black plastic piece that seals the part where the frame was joined during assembly by Lewmar.

Trust me, it's better to remove the port. Do not overheat the lens or gasket, but do apply some heat to the aluminum from outside. push some thin "putty knife" type blades under the frame. Be careful not scratch the surrounding gel coat - I put some strong protective tape next to the frame to protect it.
That factory sealant is very strong -- EY used 5200 for bedding parts everywhere on our '88 boat. AARG! :(

One other little place for a drip is around each of those little turn levers -- there is a cover over the screw head on the inside of each. Carefully pry out that plastic cover and then you can back out the screw and find that under the outside part is a little O ring, and probably dust..... there was at one time some grease under each cap.

Also: go here -- https://ericsonyachts.org/ie/resources/lewmar-ports-service-and-repair.175/
and click on download.

When you re-install your port, best to use a less-adhesive sealant than 5200... !
:)

With your port(s) re-fitted and watertight, you can do some repairs of the inside veneer. Lots... of great threads here on that project with more than one acceptable solution.
 

markvone

Sustaining Member
For the interior wood veneer you can a) carve out all the rotted wood, fill with epoxy filler paste, sand and paint or b) scrape/chisel the entire piece of teak veneer plywood off and replace. The port needs to be out for b) as does the teak edge trim and all 10,000 rusty staples along the top and bottom edge of the vinyl headliner. Veneer plywood is 1/4 inch thick. I replaced all of it on an E36RH with one 4x8 sheet of teak veneer plywood.
Mark
 
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Marlin Prowell

E34 - Bellingham, WA
Welcome to boat ownership! It is an adventure. I have relearned many times that where you see a leak inside a boat is not necessarily where the water is getting in. Water runs downhill until it can find a place to get out.

I am currently replacing my Lewmar old style #1 portlights, so I took a photo of one of the removed portlights. You can see that there is a U-shaped channel that faces towards the lens. You can see into each screw hole to see the back side of the U channel. The inner part of the U channel has a slot that holds the rubber gasket that seals the portlight lens. Since a screw hole is leaking, water is getting in somewhere between the gasket and the aluminum frame, then running downhill inside the U channel until it finds the screw hole you circled. Or perhaps it is getting in where the two halves of the aluminum frame meet. On both the inside and the outside of the portlight, the black gasket between the two aluminum frame halves should be flush with the aluminum surface.

If I look carefully at your photo #3, I can see a bit of caulk between the hull and the portlight. Someone else has already removed this portlight and tried to recaulk it. Perhaps the portlight to hull seal is still good. Perhaps if you just replace the gasket the leak will be fixed. Both catalinadirect.com and fisheriessupply.com have replacement gaskets. But my experience is that trying to do the minimum amount of fixing means you’ll be back to fix other problems later. There are four(!) holes through the old standard portlight lens and these have gaskets that wear out and leak. Consider getting a portlight handle kit from fisheriessupply.com. These will start to leak if they aren’t already leaking.

Lastly, fixing the wood paneling will require removing the portlight. You probably don’t have the original sealant that Ericson used, so it should be easier than dealing with 5200 sealant. When removing the portlight, cut out as much sealant as you can from the inside of the boat so as little as possible is holding onto the inner edge of the hull cutout.
 

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Epenn

1985 E30+, San Francisco, CA
Or perhaps it is getting in where the two halves of the aluminum frame meet. On both the inside and the outside of the portlight, the black gasket between the two aluminum frame halves should be flush with the aluminum surface.

If I look carefully at your photo #3, I can see a bit of caulk between the hull and the portlight. Someone else has already removed this portlight and tried to recaulk it. Perhaps the portlight to hull seal is still good. Perhaps if you just replace the gasket the leak will be fixed.
Lots of great and specific info. Thanks! I have already replaced the lens gasket. I'm going to try adding silicone to the frame interstices and if that works I'll be happy. If not I'll pull the whole frame.
 

Dave G.

1984 E30+ Ludington, MI
I would reiterate what Loren said and make sure you replace the O-rings inside the lock handles. When you install the O-rings use a little
Dielectric grease on them. After much trial and error I found those tiny seals were the root of my leak problem.
 

markvone

Sustaining Member
What would you use to carve it out? What would you paint it with?
Here is a link to the repairs that Christian Williams did:


I suspect a wood chisel or even an oscillating multi-tool will work. The veneer is only 1/4 inch thick with solid fiberglass behind. You just need to remove rotted wood sections.

I had extensive damage under all 8 ports/portlights and wanted to retain the factory teak look so I replaced the entire teak cabin side. Also, I needed to replace my four crazed (fixed) portlights and my four opening ports so I had them all out anyway.

I would suggest you study your existing port(s), all their parts and their cutouts in the cabin side very carefully to make sure they are either in good shape or repairable. Many owners have successfully replaced lenses and gaskets and cleaned and rebuilt port/portlight frames which is less cost but more labor than a port/portlight replacement. If you see anything that looks unrepairable (corroded or bent) or could cause sealing issues, I would seriously consider what you can do to change the condition. This is a once every 25 year job that needs to end up watertight or leaks will damage the interior in the future. The factory cutouts are famous for being very rough and a poor match to the ports/portlights causing sealing issues leading to leaks.

In my case I had extensive water damage under all 8 port/portlights. All 8 port/portlights had crazed lenses. My fixed portlights were original and made by Mark Plastic. The frame is a non-corroding vinyl with the acrylic sealed to it. No lens replacement is possible. My leaks were between the portlight and the boat. I replaced with identical portlights from Mark Plastic except I upgraded from acrylic to safety glass which will not craze in the future. I sealed the new portlights with butyl tape. I have to redo one portlight which has just developed a drip.

My opening ports were cast aluminum frame Gioits. There is no aluminum extrusion to corrode, no extrusion seam and no gasket to seal the lens to the frame. I intended to just replace the crazed acrylic lens which is sealed to the frame with caulk and re-bed them in the cabin side. When I studied the port design and my boat's cabin side cutouts I found issues I didn't like. The biggest issue was that the Gioits have a very small sealing surface and my cabin side cutouts were rough and oversized reducing the sealing surface to near nothing in places. I decided to change to new Lewmar size 0 opening ports in stainless. This allowed me to expand the cabin side cutout to the exact size of the new Lewmar yielding a large sealing surface. The ports are non-corroding cast stainless with replaceable lens and gasket. I wound up spending around $200 per port/portlight because I couldn't rebuild or re-lens my existing ports/portlights. I did save a lot of labor and I have virtual lifetime replacements with the vinyl frame safety glass portlights and the stainless ports. After spending the time to replace the cabin side teak, I did not want to be dealing with leaks ever again.

Mark
 

Loren Beach

O34 - Portland, OR
Senior Moderator
Blogs Author
We recently replaced our OEM Lewmar opening ports. I went with the 'Atlantic' model, and did have to slightly lengthen the cutouts. They are very sturdy. The old Lewmar's were certainly rebuildable, but I wanted to start over. We love these new ports.
The former ones had served well since 1988, and we figured that they did not owe us anything.
 
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