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Captain's chair pedestal coming loose.

keithkz

keithkz

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Any idea if these are screws, or are they bolts with nuts on the bottom side?  All of the them are loose.  When I loosen further they don't come out.  I didn't want to loosen more for fear if there is a nut on the bottom it would fall out.  How do you even access the bottom side???  Thanks.

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Nuts on the bottom Keith. You'll have to get your hand and a wrench in through the side with a helper on the screwdriver. Put a piece of tape on the box end of the wrench so as not to lose the nut. On our boat I;ve looked through there and it's doable. I'm going to change the base to an adjustable one.
 
Wow I can barely see in under there from the side. I'd have to have a 2.5 foot long wrench to reach that. Any idea what size nuts those are? Looks like 7/16 from what I can tell....maybe even only 3/8. What a pain.
 
Need to drill out a few rivets and remove a few bolts and take a side panel skirt section off off and you can get in there, they are stainless rivets when I did mine I just used aluminum rivets as that is what I had on hand when I did mine.
 
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You really can't access that from the bottom can you? What an engineering screw up if you ask me.
 
Yeah it was not the greatest idea riveting things but its not bad to do once I figured out what I needed to do to remove the skirting then its easy to get in to get at the nuts.

I think if one didn't have under skinning wave shields it would be doable by squeezing in between the tubes and reaching up but I have full wave shield under skin on mine so that was out.
 
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I just had someone hold a screwdriver on the bolt heads while I crawled underneath and tightened up the nuts on the bottom.  No problemo......but I don't have under skinning.   
 
I guess I'll remove the skirting to access them....I guess that's the bad part of having the wave shield.
 
I see no rivets to remove or anything like that...at least not from the outside.  Do you do it from the inside???
 
Your skirting maybe different than mine being an older different style boat but on mine the skirting was riveted to the bottom of the cross member on the rear end if I remember right and then bolted on the ends. I will have to look when I get home for a better description and maybe a picture.
 
I hear that there may have been a tool developed just for this problem. I imagine it would just be
 
keithkz said:
You really can't access that from the bottom can you? What an engineering screw up if you ask me.
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Bennington eliminates visible side skirt fasteners (small rivets of screws) by utilizing the existing pontoon mounting bolts. This creates a finished look that is Bennington. It sells the boat. However having to remove a dozen heavy duty mounting bolts just to remove a side skirt adds to service cost. What makes it more frustrating is traditional small fastener mounting is only visible when you walk up to the boat on the showroom floor not at dockside. Now with that said is it really a engineering screw up or is it the actions of a customer focused organization that wants to increase market share?
 
I would try to pry up on the pedestal to put pressure on the nuts below. Then tighten the screw heads while tension friction is holding the nut.
Maybe a little prayer too.
TT
 
Using existing bolts also saves labor and materials which would add to costs.
 
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