I have been told my transom and stringers are bad on my 89 Champion 184. Is this something that can be reasonably repaired or is this the beginning of the end for the old Champ.

If it’s just wet you can dry it out good as new. Pull everything off the transom and two weeks of heat lamps will do the trick.
If it’s mush and you’re a little handy look at seacast.

I did Seacast on a Kingfisher transom and it worked great!

I will google....but how does Seacast work?

I’ll try to be more detailed.
Your champ transom can absolutely be dried out if it’s just wet. If it’s been wet for years and turned to mush then that’s different.

Seacast is a two part material that’s mixed and poured. It’s all about the prep work, 100% of your old transom must be removed. Not a fun job. But nothing complicated either.

And let’s learn we reseal our boats every five years.

82 184 done in seacast.

seacast is some great stuff and super strong when done right, that johnson had some work done to it and was 220hp at the prop, boat would do 73 loaded and cruise at 68 all day long.

I did the top in 3 layers of the biaxial cloth that they sell, painted the back with rattle can pro bed liner due to discoloration and the new work.

As Pat and Hop said the prep work is the hard part which starts after you get the motor off and use an electric-my opinion- chain saw to remove the rotted wood. Some tools need to be handmade so they will do the job at hand. I also wore out a Shop Vac. Take your time and follow the Seacast video.

yep, I used a 20" stihl to clean mine but had some of my log working stuff so I could set the depth.

made a deep chisel by welding some 1/4" pipe to one of my old 1" chisels, make it long enough you can angle it good. I think mine was 2.5' of pipe with a cap on it.


one trick I did was put copper pipe between the glass for engine mounting bolts just before I poured the seacast, put the bolts thru to hold in place. pretty sure it was 3/4". this helps hold the transom sides from expanding, expanding is bad.

look at the inside of the transom and make sure you have no openings in the blown in, it will leak, leak is bad.

As Hop memtioned you have to “work” the Seacast into place and make sure it gets all the way to the bottom. I fabricated a new splashwell and felt that was harder than the transom rebuild. Went through lots of gloves working the resin.

Any idea of what it would cost to have someone do this to the boat? I run my own business and the time to do this is not on the horizon. My son will be a freshman next year and he is pumped for high school bass fishing.....but he is bummed right now about the condition of the boat. Thanks for your input fellas.

go to lake fork fiberglass on 515 just east of emory, they do good work but no idea how busy they are.

not sure what cost would be at a shop as it can be labor intensive, my materials cost around 800.00 all total and took me 7 days counting curing time etc. actual cleaning out the transom and pouring seacast was only a 2 1/2 day job, little over 3 to cure then another day and a half to rerig everything (had no help so rerig was a pain) and I had a shop to use for it.

That is where the boat sits right now waiting on insurance to give me what they will pay for the damage.