[Capt Terry]

I did not paint the bilge or transom fwd sheet after my transom rebuild. However as my project started I noticed the factory applied blue paint on the aft bilge area and transom fwd. sheet was mostly missing in the area of the outboards lower mount bolts. Then realized the brittle paint probably could not withstand the flexing of the weakened transom. So this is an additional clue, besides distortion of the transom cutout trim piece the transom was bad. In addition I rigged up some poor man proximity probes nearly touching the transom Then with jack stands under the trailer to take trailer springs out of the picture, I jumped up and down on the AV plate while my neighbor kid videoed the transom deflection.