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Gel coat cracking BAD!


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I need Help. My gel coat is cracking from every screw on the windshield on the port side, and from the bow light, does anyone know what would have caused this? The cracks run down to the bumper.

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Are you just now noticing this or has it been going on for a while? Is there any added stress or weight on the windshield in particular? If the holes were not properly piloted and/or chamfered this could cause this. Or if the screws were torqued too much or not enough you could get cracking also. I would think this would show up in the warranty period though and Malibu would have taken care of it. I hate to tell you that gel work is really really really expensive if you didn't all ready know.

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Surely this has been building up for some time. Are the screws loose or have you have the windshield out? I'm trying to correlate the windshield and the bow light. Wonder why those two items and not your tower, cleats, ect.

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I had the same problem with my 2006 Vride, the problem was the screws as Ndawg stated, fixed last fall. Boat is still in storage, so I have yet to see if it cracked again, gelcoat guy said it should not happen again. :unsure:

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I waxed it in January and the cracks were not there, now the longest one is two feet. The fiberglass guy is saying up to $4500. pretty much eats up my deductable. the boat is an 05 and the dealer says the warrenty is expired, nothing they can do. I havent checked to see if the holes were originally chamfered. No cracks on the tower mounts at all, and only on one side of the windshield, where i had the entire windshield off a couple years ago, and had no issues with it until now.

Wakedv did Malibu help at all?

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Wakedv, notice your in Alberta, do you theink the cold had anything to do with it? I had the boat in Montana this last year.

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Sounds to me like the bedding beneath the windshield may have failed, allowing water in to the screw holes, where it got wicked into a void in the glass, froze, expanded and cracked the gel.

Do you live someplace where you get and stay well below freezing for a while during winter?

On a reassuring note...

Gel coat repair can be learned by just about anyone. It's not easy the first time. Not hard the second time. The trick is to start with a small inconspicuous repair, and work your way up to the big obvious ones. If you don't have a spot that's inconspicuous - make one.

A single 2foot long crack in newish gel is about $100 in materials and 5 - 6 hours careful work.

Truth-be-told though, doing 4 cracks of the same color gel can probably be done in 12 hours of careful work with $125 worth of materials. The glass shops just charge the same for the first crack as they do for all subsequent cracks. It's how they make a living.

With that said - you will HAVE to re-bed that windshield. Also not hard...the second time. It's going to have to come off to do the work though. And it's a 4 person job. If you have the inclination to do both of these yourself and save yourself thousands and thousands of dollars, I can point you in the right direction.

One potential issue - there may be a flaw in the glass and/or gel in that area. If there are voids, that's a problem and any water in there at all will freeze and crack the gel again. No good way to figure it out except to see if it happens again next year. Alternative solution - indoor heated storage. If you indeed have that issue, just don't let the boat freeze.

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Flatwater, I don't think it has anything to do with the cold, the gelcoat guy said it was the installation of the windshield. I have also heard from others that the boats build in California have to use a different formula for their gelcoat than the ones built in Tennessee and California boats have cracking issues, could be BS?

The cracking appeared when still under warranty, so the dealer and Malibu covered the cost, it was repaired once before in the same area, first repair job was not properly done, did not chamfer the windshield screw holes.

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