portlight issue

[wfleenor]

I have 8 portlights and the builder did a very poor job of bedding them properly. Most leak to some extent. With great effort I managed to remove one of them and install it properly. I cannot get the others out, the one I did budge was obviously installed with 5200. Any suggestions, short of cutting them out and installing larger portlights? Thanks.

 

[STB]

Take a solid metal, scraper or putty knife 1" to 3" wide and tap it with a hammer under the lip of the portlight. Work your way around as much of the portlight as you can. This should break up some of the adhesive.

Then, take a solid wedge shaped piece of wood. Hammer it under the lip of the portlight, parallel to an edge, the longer the edge the better. As it goes farther and farther under, it should start to pop the remaining glue and lift the portlight out

 

[Insequent]

Heat the portlight. Heat makes 5200 quite soft and flexible, easy to remove.

 

[Comodave]

There is a chemical that will help release 5200, maybe called DeBond. I have not tried it but have seen it used on ShipShape TV and it seemed to work. Also as said previously heat will help. We replaced 11 portholes on our boat. Fortunately i was able to cut the plastic portholes out. I used butyl tape to install the new S/S portholes. Use clamps to squeeze the butyl and it will slowly flow out and fill the voids.

 

[FF]

When wedging the ports out use plenty of wedges and take lots of time as the sealing goop will release slowly.


Wedge a few and check in the AM.

 

[wfleenor]

Perhaps I was a little brief in the description of the problem. The one thing that did get properly sealed was the stainless screws. We actually can’t get them to back out. One would think they would at least twist off, but they don’t budge except for stripping out. Will have to drill the heads off to even try to get them out. The one we did get the screws out took several hours to extricate the portlight. I think the DeBond is a good place to start. Thanks all.

 

[Comodave]

I assume that you are trying to save the portholes so cutting them up isn’t an option. You say S/S screws that will not break off so you are going to drill them. You might try an impact driver to break them off, it may be a lot easier than drilling the heads off. But then you still need to get the broken off screw out...