Jacking Plates - Welcome to The Amphicar Lovers Digest / Forum

**Jacking Plates -** 12-18-2005, 07:54 PM

From: amphicar-lovers@yahoogroups.com [mailto:amphicar-lovers@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of neemos64
Sent: Sunday, December 18, 2005 3:42 PM
To: amphicar-lovers@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [amphicar-lovers] First swim

I took the amphi for its first swim today which was successful, even with the 4 or 5 leak areas. Unfortunately, the bilge pump didnt work so I had to make it short. One thing I noticed was a tremendous amount of pin holes and leaking coming thru the body directly behind the jack plates. It also looks like there may have been some filling in with putty there... has anyone experienced problems with rusting or holes in this area? thanks, Bill Todd

Now might be a good time to remind everyone to first search the Yahoo archives for previous posts on a subject; there's a wealth of discussion on many topics.

The jacking plates were a bad design idea. The plates are quite strong, but they were tack welded onto the hull at about 5 points. That left athin gapthat water could get into, between the jacking plate and the hull. Even if thoroughly painted, the steel in the gap was exposed to the water. On my Amphi, I could see only some slight paint blistering, about an inch in diameter, on the inside of the hull over each jacking plate. To get at all of the rust, I eventually had to grind off each jacking plate and ended up with 4" by 10" holes in the hull. (PIXS sent off-line)

Yes, you could say the jacking plates are a problem.

Ed Price

El Cajon, CA USA

67 Rust Guppy