Originally Posted by wildtsail
No the guy who chose to put aluminum backing plates for steel bolts is the retard!
One of my front beam bolts stripped and ever since the boat has not felt as stiff. It stripped because the threads were somehow damaged on the bolt, I barely tightened the bolt but I didnt notice the threads were damaged until it was too late. I was able to upsize the bolt and it holds at the factory torque setting (but I do tighten it a bit tighter, part of the issue) but I'm not sure whats up.
Since they are laminated in it seems like it'd be a huge nightmare / impossbile to get them out... but if I could I would replace them with stainless steel backing plates in a heartbeat. AHPC boats have stainless steel backing plates, I think Tornados do too, not sure about Hobie.... but it just doesn't seem like a good idea to me to put aluminum ones in there!



Originally Posted by catman
The steel works ok with the aluminum if you use something like Tef Gel. The other thing is any time you remove the bolts you should run a die over the bolt and a tap through the plate.

Tornado's have a Helicoil in a epoxy bed. That's something you can do with yours. Just put it in with some red loctite and use the tefgel.



Welcome to the world on NACRA!!!!!!! Has a similar problem with the 5.8, the first time re tapping the thread worked, second time I went to the helicoil for one of the bolts worked like a charm.

Good luck.

Oh! And don't mind Team Chums, its turrets you'll get use to it in a while.