Aint that the truth. Not much worse than being tarred and feathered with sweat and fiberglass dust.

Why remove? If it's dry and rot free, cut back to clean wood, plug the holes and tab in the plug. You could then beef up the transom with an additional layer of core and glass.

Agree if dry- Will see what I learn from the moisture meter in the coming days....

So got the boat off the trailer and blocked up last week.
Was able to go over the transom with a moisture meter to see how things looked. As expected on a 40 year old boat, the meter pegged wet on a lot of area. On the port lower side showed wet while Stbd upper side suprisingly was pretty dry. Might be hard to make out grease pencil marks in below photos.
Don't want to invest all the time in the deck, stringer, and bracket work over a wet or moist core. Out it comes...

Little more progress. Tank out. Most wiring removed. Need to scrub/ de- grease whole engine space. Lots of oil residue. Tank was in good shape with no serious pits. Might be a case for not foaming in tanks as only screws and rubber rub strips on the bottom. Let it breathe and allow to dry against the aluminum. Tank date on label says 1974.

Only 2x #10 screws per tank bracket into side of stringer which had worked loose after 42 years - guess not too bad.

Did find a surprise at the 90 degree fill elbow of the tank - looks like a failed fill with a can? Or maybe a siphon attempt?

Looking good Packrat! Making some progress. I'll have to swing by again when you start ripping into the transom core.

Degreasing
 

Anyone have an effective de-greasing method for the bilge? 40 years of oil drips and grime have left a nasty sludge in the bilge. First thought is to get a gallon of simple green, few buckets of hot water and get to work with a scrub brush.

There will be a lot of glass work coming in this area- tank bed, keel stiffener, transom chocks/gussets, etc and don't want grind in oil residue if any is left behind.

Typically would just scrub first with dawn or simple green, then hit surface with grinder/sander then clean with solvent but there is a LOT of oily glass in the bilge. Looking for good first cleaning step that might be better.

Thanks.

Plain old Gunk and a pressure washer......
After that plain old bleach and a pressure washing !

We use cases and cases of this stuff at the boatyard I work for.
Very effectively degreases just about anything! The sprayer head has a nice long shot too for localized degreasing, or for spraying somewhere you cant quite get to.

https://www.spraynine.com/product/marine-grez-off/

https://2xdmz41ee1hc1qdhmh35hx4a-wpe...06/30232-1.jpg

Thanks for input.