Under gunwale rod holder repair

[hmar]

1998 MA- the under gunwale rod holders are in need of some attention. The tube portion that runs under the deck and guides the rod tips is missing on 6 of 8 holders. I’d like to replace the tubes if possible but wondering if anyone has dealt with this before. Anyone have experience with this or know how the tubes are installed from the factory? I’m thinking a tube insert with a flange on it could be pushed through from the outside but not sure about supporting it under the deck. I do have an access window cut into the central bow hatch so I might be able to get back there to a degree..

Thanks for any suggestions!

[HoneyB]

My first thought is can you hear the tubes rattling around in the hull? I know not the same year but my 1992 MA project had the tubes flush with the inside of the boat and glassed to the backside of the bulk head. It is hard to believe the tubes came all the way out the front side into the boat. You can see here the tubes were bent to contours of the front of the boat.  I can get some pics of the backside of the bulkhead where the tubes were glassed on. 

[HoneyB]

Pictures of the back of the bulkhead and the tubes to show the radius. 

[hmar]

Awesome, thank you for sending those pictures along! I’ll do some more investigation soon and see if I can find the tubes under the deck…  

[hmar]

Well I put this project off last season but finally came up with a solution. I used starboard for the mounting plates and 1 1/2” pvc tubes bent with a heat gun and a pvc flange welded to the ends. 

Ended up taking a long time to get the pvc bent just right… but glad to have this project done! 

[Moderator]

First Class work, HMar !!

Thank you for putting up the photojournal.  These are valuable to many people later !! 
MMarc

[whichwaysup]

Nicely done!

[smilemaker]

Did you  use thin wall  or scd 40

Thin wall  pvc is the way to go

[hmar]

4 hours ago, smilemaker said:

Did you  use thin wall  or scd 40

Thin wall  pvc is the way to go

Wasn’t able to find anything thinner than schedule 40 nearby so I just gave it a shot. Something g with a little flex would have been nice but made it work 🤷‍♂️

[Wanaflatsfish]

On 5/5/2025 at 6:59 AM, Moderator said:

First Class work, HMar !!

Thank you for putting up the photojournal.  These are valuable to many people later !! 
MMarc

x2

[searing]

Very nice!! 
Another idea, The same thing could be done  the way I did here except the flange could be round. My boat is the older model with only two larger tubes rather than the four smaller ones like on the later models. I made my flanges to mimic the original ones so I could utilize the same screw holes. The goal was to eliminate the lip inside the tubes so there was nothing anymore that the rod guides could hang up on.