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You need the gasket kit which includes rubbers and tiny copper rivets – do not lose!
Drill the heads off the old rivets, prise apart the bailer and replace the rubbers. Replace the rivets with new and peen over the end that hasn’t got a head with a steel hammer. A centre punch helps to start them. Make sure you get everything snug. It is the same as you do with a traditional copper boat nail and rove.
The price of the kit is very high and only just justifies not buying new bailers. I replaced mine last year (using the kit) and the rubbers supplied are not 100% water tight so they still leak slightly. If you buy new bailers you could at least hold them up to the light to see if they’re watertight.
I hope this helps – it is not difficult but a bit of a fiddle – don’t lose the little rivets when you open the box!!
Hi Margaret, I replaced my gaskets a few months ago.As I recall there should be three rubber gaskets in the box: two large ones of different thickness for sealing around the bailer to the boat, and one smaller thicker one which fits inside the bailer.
As BluTak says, you need to drill out the old copper rivets and replace the internal seal with the smaller thicker rubber – but take care which way that you put it in, if you look at the insde edges of the rubber, you’ll see that they are profiled – make a note of the profile of the old rubber when you take it out. A digital camera is a great help in these situations! You’ll need a “ball-pien” or “engineers” hammer to fit the new copper rivets, I got mine from B&Q, it has a round head on one end which you use to flatten the head of the rivets.
The other two gaskets provide a seal and get the right thickness so that the bailer fits flush with the hull, you might not need both.
I also used silcone (kitchen) sealant arond the seals both internal and external to ensure a good seal. This may be OTT and I’m sure that someone will now post to say that this will rot the rubber. However, it made me more confident about the seal. Also, Judging by how little water came into the boat on Sunday, it seems to work!
Good luck
KenGood answer Kemba – I’m sure silicon will be fine – I used Sikaflex.
But I don’t remember any profile on the inner edges so maybe I missed a trick. All I remember was that they weren’t a brilliant fit.
Mine do leak slightly and if I do them again I’ll need to find out which way the profile should go.
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