Stainless Steel Model Smart Tab Owners - Question for you

Hi,

If there are any smart tab owners on here I have a question about how you mounted the hinge plate and tab to the transom.

I bought a set of stainless steel smart tabs, and yesterday I installed the hinge plate and tab to the transom with the sheet metal screws supplied(shooting a little attwood 7200 in the holes before i went in with the sheet metal screw). I don't have access to the backside of my transom down in there the way my boat is built, so I can't really do anything different.

My question is did you guys out there just use the sheet metal screws provided, or did you think it wouldn't hold up and use a different method of securing them to the transom, like a nut, washer and bolt?

Hope there are some of you out there that installed it like me with no problems, so i'll feel more confident about them not coming off or leaking.

Any pics? What's the metal gauge on your hull, heck, what is your boat?

For me, no sheet metal screws. I'd get a block of 3/8 or 1/2" thick aluminum welded to your hull, predrilled and tapped for the tab mounting hardware (stainless machine screws or bolts). Water can be real hard on tabs, rocks are even worse...

Jamie

I called nauticus and they said it would be fine, The guy I talked to said that the force on them is pushing into the boat rather than pulling them away from the boat. Said he'd never had any problems installing them like that in 10 years on aluminum boats. I hope they're right because I was very skeptical about doing any drilling in my transom, now if something goes wrong I have 12 holes to plug, that is a lot of holes.

Nobody else out there with these tabs on an aluminum boat?