Update. She's starting to look like I did something finally. I spent quite a bit of time sanding the exterior of the transom skin in preperation for primer and
paint. That GFlex epoxy is incredibly tough stuff and is pretty hard to sand even. I had to go down to 80grit on a finishing sander to make it faster and easier to get the high spots of the epoxy down before stepping up to finer paper. But, in the process, I ended up with a nice etched up surface for the primer to stick to. I don't have a paint gun so I opted to just rattle can the entire thing. I have some techniques I've used with spray paint in the past to create pretty dang nice finishes, albeit a bit more time and prep. Funny story, I was concerned a little about finding a color of white that matched the OEM color of the boat. Low and behold, rustoleum has a color called heirloom white that I am really happy with how close it is. I have a pic of the cap color against the side of the boat for reference. Being its on the back of the boat and I'm not blending it into existing paint, I feel it is a pretty dang good match.
After sanding, I cleaned it all up and shot a few coats of primer to beat the natural oxidation process of aluminum. I temporarily put the Z channel in place and slid the new core down in the boat. Its snug side to side and dropped in with very little force. All of my holes I predrilled and filled with epoxy lined up and I'm in the process of redrilling all of the holes now and getting it ready to bolt in permanently. Once its all drilled and I have no more fab work to do, I'll shoot the color on the transom and clear coat. Feeling like I'm getting close now!
One "gotcha". After the new tin was glued in, adding 1/16" of additional thickness, that Z channel at the bottom that the core sits on would not fit quite right. The vertical struts that the transom core all bolts to didn't allow for enough room for that additional thickness. I decided the best and easiest thing is to simply get it lined up,
mark it and cut out the bit where the struts are, gaining back that thickness. I probably could have just jammed it all in there, but I don't like adding undue stress to it. Also, with the new inner skin being a smidge thicker than the old one, I'm going to notch it out as well so it fits well and everything bots up perfectly.
I have a bunch of 316 Stainless bolts and hardware on its way. Hoping I'll be able to get the bulk of it bolted up and done this weekend.
My final project is to fix and repair the U channel pieces on the top. Two of them were pretty beat up with corrosion. Starcraft used some type of nail to hold them on and I seriously doubt it was any kind of stainless. Being the cheap *** I am, I think I'm going to use that epoxy to fix the couple of spots on them that were eaten up, sand them and repaint. Then use stainless screws of course to reinstall.