OUTLAW EAGLE MANUFACTURING

[Grizzly]

Hi, has anyone with an Outlaw boat experienced their teflon either coming off or finding a lot of broken bolts? My boat is a twin so its keel pad is a lot wider than a single. I have had the keel plate come right off and throw us around in the Peace river the first time. Outlaw took care of everything and replaced the keep plate with additional fasteners. Did not put a lot of hours on it last year and had to replace a half dozen bolts at the rear of the pad. Now these had been bumped so I thought well that may be normal. Just getting a chance to get it out this year and I crawled under it tonite and thought I would check all of the bolts and found twelve so far broken with 8 all along one outside edge with a small gap that would be sure to hydraulic off.

Now these twelve bolts have had zero impact with anything and not a scratch in the teflon near them. I looked at the bolts after screwing the outside broken bolts out and they appear to be twisted. Now I check all that i had replaced by hand and all are OK.

I did not ask the Outlaw guys before but are these bolt holes drilled and then self tapped when screwing the bolts in? I did that but did it by hand with success. Do you guys install them with an impact or some other form.

I know I just had a friend in Dawson have his teflon come off as well and luckily did not hurt anyone.

The only thing I can think of is that these are installed pneumatically and being stressed. Also the ones that are broken are not the ones on the flat surface but are on the outside where although the teflon is bent ina brake it still take pressure on the bolts to hold down. Would this put extra pressure on the bolts when installing causing to sheer or partially sheer??

give me your thoughts anyone

[Xerophobic]

Ill answer what I can here and make sure someone else looks into this for you.

The holes in the hull for the UHMW are definitely tapped before the bolts are installed. This is to provide an extra level of security to minimize leakage.

Please get a few good pictures of where and what bolts are breaking or giving you problems and email them to me so i can bring this up with those in the know.

Thanks

jamesl@outlaweagle.com

[Xerophobic]

A little more info before we see some pictures.....

Hydraulic forces acting on the bottom of the hull are huge. If water is getting behind the UHMW broken bolts are likely.

We use grade 8 fasteners and short of rock strikes or the situation mentioned above you should not be seeing broken bolts.

This is where pictures of the bottom will greatly help us diagnose whats occurring.

Bolts cannot fail due to "over tightening" when installing UHMW because they would pull through the material long before enough tension would be placed on the fastener to stretch it.

There is something else going on and we need to see some pictures to figure this out for you

Has anything else changed about the boat? The bottom etc?

Cheers

[Rapidchaser]

Hmmmm, This bolt breaking is certainly a mystery to say the least.
A friend hit a large rock on the McLeod and put a dent in his Lynx
that you could put a basket ball into and that Teflon held!

Maybe some bad bolts? but certainly not that many.
I am interested in whats happening there simply because it is indeed unusual.

Like xero said over torquing is impossible. That would be caught right away!

[Grizzly]

Hi, thanks I will get good digital pics and send through. Nothing has been changed on the hull. I have one small dent in the front but in no way would water get under the teflon when on step as all of that portion would be out of the water.. I will also include a pic of the broken bolts. All bolts are broken in the exact same spot if I laid them beside each other. That point is just a couple of threads below the unthreaded portion of the two inch bolt.

Where should I send the pics to?

[Xerophobic]

That will be a good start Grizzly

I attached my email address in my first post you can send the pictures there.

Cheers

[YKX]

POST THE PICS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You've caught all our attentions!

YKX

[jetjunkie]

This might sound kind of odd, but how was the boat stored for the winter? Was it out side, if the boat was not set at a angle to drain water out from between the hull and UHMW it will freeze and expand. Something well let go. I've seen it happen to friends boats as well as mine. I've done a few hulls in the past and I use air tools to install all bolts. Start bolting a hull by hand and you'll soon be looking for power tools also. Not sure on how Outlaw does theirs, but mine are drilled, taped, bolt with rubber back washer and nylock nuts inside the hull. Hope this helps

[v-drive fanatic]

Grizzly sorry to hear of ur miss fortune lets see if I'm any help. The way that outlaw installs the UHMW is as follows ...
the UHMW Is cut and formed to fit the hull using a press-break once it has a good dry fit it is positioned,clamped in place, then bolt rows are laid out. Once this is done the rear section is done bolt by bolt each one is drilled using a 17/64 drill,if the bottom of boat is thicker than 1/4" it will need to be taped using a 5/16 tap after that the bolt is then lubricated and installed with either a 3/8 impact or a 1/2 drill. if bottom is 1/4 or less taping is not required because when bolt is tightened and countersunk the chances of that bolt becoming a STRIPPER are greater thus could be a potential spot to leak. Once rear is done the front is the same... Although i may correct Zero the bolts are in fact grade 9.8 rather than gr.8 Now its time for 5/16 rubber back washers and 5/16 Teflon lock nuts.

Grizzly im not sure how and why??? your hardware is breaking. As far as hydraulicking im sure its impossible for the hardware to fail, it would be way easier for the UHMW to rip the bolt through first and that goes for the freezing aspect as well. Ur next idea of the bolts being stressed is also unlikely as well because there's no way that the threads in the aluminum on the bottom of your boat is stronger than the hardware. Also weather the bolt be installed by hand,impact,or taped they are all lubricated too ease the install, but keep in mind that the bolt is installed with a 3/16 Allen key witch will shear or snap off way before that hardened 5/16 bolt would.
I hope Ive helped and yes send pics and lets try to find your answers.

[Rapidchaser]

Bin doing a little thinking here.
The bolts going through the (plastic) and into the hull which are taped are already under some stress.

If for some reason force was used on the nut, there is a good possibility of over stressing the bolt.

Have you tried tightening these "nuts" and if so this could lead to your problem, because the bolt is already in a thread locked.

Just a thought.
Cheers,
Emery

[Xerophobic]

Who Knew!? a Vdrive guy that knows anything about plastic on a jetboat !
(change your screen name before I ban you! )

I have your pictures and we're getting opinions on whats goin on. We'll let you know asap

Doesn't make alot of sense from where the bolts seem to be breaking

Cheers

[Skinnydipper]

I pride myself in serious bottom contact (not those bottoms, keep it clean ) and have yet to have any bolts break on mine yet. Some bolt heads do show signs of contact but none broken .

[Xerophobic]

It appears from the pictures this is a issue complicated by the fact there are 2 heavy layers of UHMW in the area in question. The bolts are breaking within the inner layer of plastic and they are breaking in the threaded portion of the bolt.
We're still asking the people involved with our UHMW what they think can be causing this. Overtightening seems unlikely at this stage especially since the bolts are breaking away from the hull.

Cheers

[v-drive fanatic]

Just a couple of things i was thinking about today and thought ide toss em out there. I haven't met with Xero yet, hope to see those pics tomorrow but the way it sounds is that the bolts are not breaking due to over tightening because if so the bolt would still hold in the bottom and you would have a bunch of nuts with stubby bolts stuck on them rolling around the inside. It sounds like the bolts are breaking where the UHMW is doubled up... Well one thing that comes to mind is that the UHMW is not absolutely tight with the bottom or between the layers of UHMW. If there's a pocket in there somewhere even though the bolts are tight when you impact something maby there's enough movement and that's causing the bolts to catch on something or just even that force of the UHMW moving around with vibration is enough to snap them off. I checked into it today and found that the tensile strength of the bolts we use are 180,000 psi> Now that's alought for a 5/16 course thread but the higher the grade the more brittle you go as well. ??????Just something to think about. Remember that even though your bolts are tight maby the bolt is actually too long and is bottoming itself out on the shoulder before The UHMW is taught to your bottom.... Let me know what happens

[Grizzly]

HI v-drive, the two pieces of teflon appear to be flush to one another and tight all along the edges now that I have replaced the 8 bolts down the one side. Now in terms of the bolts bottoming out on the floor of the boat itself I don't think is happening. Once tight I can continue to sink the bolt into the teflon if I kept screwing it in. I have tightened them to a point where the two pieces are tight together and the bolt begins to sink into the outer piece. I then but the washer and lock nut on and snug tight from the inside.

Now the new bolts i bought from Outlaw last year are what I am using. They do appear to be two different brands as per what i see on the heads. I thought of using lesser bolt quality thinking they may have some flexibility in terms of vibration but am not an expert in that. What do you recommend in terms of getting out a broken stud. I have one that just Will not back out.