Thru hulls, leave them or remove?

[Maddie'sDaddy]

I have an older starcraft boat, 18' alluminum that has two thru hulls from when it had a head in it,One larger one and a smaller one located in the bottom of the bow area, It looks like they are metal or bronze or something similar and someone patched them , or i should say packed them full of some type of filler, they look like they have been patched for a while and doing ok, no leaks. My question is do you think i should leave them or remove and add a peice of alluminum with rivets or have someone weld a piece in place, i am unfamiliar with repair of alluminum and not sure of my options. Any help would be greatly appreciated. My worry is if i were to hit some debree, log, river bottom ect.. that they would get torn out.







MD

[fishkisser]

Are you sure they are inlets\outlets, or are they thru hull tranducers . If they are not transducers the bronze will eat up the aluminum sooner or later... Electrolosis is your ememy .. Welding would be a good option if your hull is heavy enough

[Maddie'sDaddy]

Yep ,inlet /outlet, toilet was hooked up when i bought the boat, i removed the toilet due to restrictions. just the patched fittings left, plugged with some kind of resin or something.








MD

[namu mac]

If it ain't broke don't fix it. I take it they have been there for some time and if there are no leaks or corrision then I wouldn't risk making more problems for myself.