As much as I love being able to open windows on my 31' express cruiser, I have been seriously considering replacing the sliding windows with solid glass. That's the only way I would feel certain that I could cure window leaks.
When I replaced all my window tracks several years ago, here is what I learned: As the very first project I tackled after buying the boat, it turned out to be a waste of money. I spent several hundred dollars on the metal channel lined with felt (like the original), and just a few short years later it looked just as bad as the original. The felt doesn't last at all, and the plastic insert gets brittle and breaks up. The aluminum window frames had corroded holes in the bottoms of all of them (4 frames for my cabin). This is how water got into the cabin. the screw holes that held the tracks down corroded and got bigger, and lead to a leak. The only thing I could think of was to coat the whole bottom of the frame in silicone and bed the new track in that, and not use screws at all to attach the track to the frame. Two of my windows don't slide well, and two others slide so easily that when underway they vibrate open allowing spray in. Neither is very desirable. Check your frames, once I siliconed mine, the leaks stopped. I simply don't have faith in the design of the window to keep out lots of rain or spray, and so I have been considering for a long time going to solid windows. If I didn't keep my boat under an enclosure, rain storms would keep me up at night worrying if I had leaks. Please keep us advised as to what you find and how you fix it. Tom in Florida -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "UnifliteWorld" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/unifliteworld?hl=en.
