Worn Pylons

I have a 1995 Hobie Cat 16 with badly worn pylons and elongated holes. I would like to stiffen the boat. After reading different fixes including the beer can or cutting board shims and the epoxing the boat together. I am looking for some comment on this idea. I have the boat apart now and think I could build up the pylons to their original size with Marine Tex or Bondo. Since some of the fixes include using epoxy to hold the boat together I thought the Marine Tex might hold. As for the elongated holes I would drill out the ½ inch holes to ¾ inch. Can anyone help?
Bill

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Brig Bill

Bill,

You didn't state what the gap is between the pylons and castings. Adding shims and epoxy when reassembling should to the job. Marine Tex and Bondo are not designed for the application.

Enlarging the bolt holes by a quarter inch seems like a big jump. Would 9/16 or 5/8 be enough?

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I measure a difference of 1/8 inch between the top and bottom of the pylon. There is quite a bit of ware. I was also thinking of making shims out of aluminum, but they would have to taper from 1/8 inch to 0. That’s why I thought I could build up the pylon with marine tex, but I don’t know how long it would hold up. As for the elongated hole, it would take ¾ inch to cover the hole. The only other solution I can think of is the get the hole welded up and just redrill with ½ inch. Of course there is obvious heat problems with welding

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Brig Bill