I have recently purchased some used Wilderness Tarpon kayaks and just about all the handles need to be replaced. I can not figure out how to replace the ones that have no access to underneath the bolt. I was told they all have nuts on the underside and when I try to unscrew them they just keep turning. Specifically the side handles and and rear handle. Please help! Google is useless. Thanks!
Normally the ones that don;t have a nut accessible from the inside have nuts which are molded into the plastic. In this case, just unscrewing from the top should remove it. But sounds like that isn;t working for you.
If there is something wrong and you can access the inside, you could drill out the current nut/bolt and put in a new nut/bolt to attach the straps. Use some sort of sealant like Lexall around the nut to keep water out.
On my 3 WS boats all the nuts are molded in.
picture?
Thanks for the input. I’ll have to spend some more time on it and figure out what the deal is
Sorry for resurrecting this thread but thought it was better than to start a new thread. Anyway the handles on my fleet of chinese poly sea kayaks need replacing (but with toggles). Of course you only find out that the webbing has turned to dust when the weight comes down on the handle.
Sometime in the life of these kayak the screws to the handles were loctited in. The blumming captive nut that is supposedly set in the under deck plastic mushroom spins at the first bit of pressure. I have drilled out the plastic mushroom and am now through-bolting the toggles on.
Are you looking for input on how to not bolt it with a nut that you have to reach on the inside? If that’s the case I would recommend some blind nuts. They push into a drilled hole and expand when a bolt is inserted and tightened.
Thanks. [EDIT] Sorry for the confusing typo, I have fixed it to say “now” instead of “not”. It is my preference to through bolt the toggles on.
I am able to reach under the deck to where the mushroom is. That meant I could drill out the spinning captive nut and put a nyloc nut from the inside onto a slightly longer 316 SS bolt.
My issue is that the original bolts had been glued in with something like Loctite. Why would you do that when you know you’ll have to replace handles during the life of the kayak?