"This we know. The earth does not belong to Man.  
Man belongs to the earth.  
All things are connected.  
Like the blood which unites one family.  
Man did not weave the web of life  
He is merely a strand in it.  
Whatever he does to the web he does to himself." 
Chief Seattle, Squamish Tribe, 1851


For those of you who are not completely bored with this description, here's 
a few more critical aspects of installation of lines aft. 
1) Dealing with the headliner 
2) Installing rope clutches - next installment, if anybody has the patience 
to read this junk.

One of the big problems that have to be dealt with when installing new 
hardware on the coach roof is consequent to nature of the headliner. The 
headliner, as many of you have discovered to your dismay, is a thin sheet of 
mahogany plywood (ca. 3/16" thick), covered with some sort of enamel or 
perhaps a gel coat with a semi-satin finish texture. (Definitely not a full 
gloss. And it does not seem to be a formica.).

One long term solution is to remove all the battens, remove the headliners, and 
replace them with a piece of formica. This will permit easy removal of the headliner 
each time you want to put in a piece of deck hardware It is a very good long term
solution, but apparently a lot of work. That was done by one of our members, but
his level of enthusiasm and comments cannot be repeated in public. 

An alternate strategy:
The headliner is separated from the overlying coach roof by an air space 
containing various wires. In a few locations, where the factory installed 
various hardware, such as the padeyes, coach winches, etc., they inserted a 
piece of wood between the coach roof and the headliner to act as filler and 
backing plate. This is spotty, however, and the source of a lot of trouble 
when you start adding hardware not previously anticipated by the factory.

If you want to put on a deck organizer wider than the padeye, you may find 
that you have to drill holes beyond the region containing the filler/backing 
plate. If you drill through the coach and then through the headliner, you 
have another major job that you may have to do. If you insert a bolt at that 
point, and start to tighten it, the headliner will be pulled upward to the 
coach roof at that one point. It will start to flex the headliner, and 
eventually crack the painted surface and then the plywood itself. It may 
also fail to seal properly, and then you will get water leaking in past the 
bolts, running along the top of the headliner, producing rot, water in 
various places, progressive peeling of the paint, etc.

The solution is a bit of a pain, but not all that difficult. It just takes 
longer the first time, but less time if you add in the subsequent needed 
repair job.

Outline the area of the hardware and the new bolts on the headliner with a 
light pencil. Lay out the dimension of the planned backing plate (or you 
could use fender washers, depending upon the load that the hardware will 
have to support). You may find that the best way to do this is by actually 
drilling the holes from above the deck, down through into the headliner. The 
coach roof itself is just about 1" thick. The airspace is about 1/2", and 
the plywood about 3/16". Remember to compensate for the crown curvature of 
the coach roof, so you may want to drill your holes either perpendicular to 
a tangent to the curving crown, or you may want to drill all your holes 
parallel to each other.

Once you have marked the area of the planned backing plate (of either wood 
or aluminum or steel or fender washers), using a light soft pencil, now take 
a utility knife with a fresh and sharp new blade. Very carefully cut a 
shallow groove over the pencil mark, preferably using a straight-edge to 
help provide control of the knife. Now continue to repeat your strokes, 
replacing the blade if necessary, until you cut through the headliner. One 
major concern is the possibility that you will cut into a 12 Volt wire 
leading to the overhead lamps. I find that caution, prayer and occasional 
cursing has, thus far, prevented any major disasters. It helps to make your 
cuts parallel to the longitudinal axis of the boat, since I think (i.e. no 
proof) that the wires run parallel to the length of the boat. I also turn 
off the 12 volt power supply while doing this. There are no 120 volt lines 
in the overhead, to my knowledge. But it wouldn't hurt to be extracautious, 
and also turn off the 120 circuit.

Be very patient as you do the cutting, as you don't want to chip the paint 
beyond the area of your planned backing plate.

Now remove the cut piece of headliner. You should have a clear view of the 
inside surface of the coach roof.

You can now make a fresh filler piece of teak as the backing plate. The 
piece should initially be about 1/2" wider and longer than the area of the 
cutout headliner. It should be about 3/4" to 7/8" thick. Using a router or a 
table saw, cut an indent on the back side of the piece of wood so that it 
fits inside the area cut out of the headliner, leaving the good side of the 
wood in the full original dimension. This will act as a covering lip over 
the cut surface of the headliner. Carefully sand the side of the wood that 
will face the roof to match the curvature of the crown.

Now comes a tricky part - you have to match the location of the holes 
drilled in the roof with the holes in the expensive little piece of teak. 
How to drill the holes in the teak backing plate? Have someone hold the 
piece of wood in the slot in the headliner. Have them press the wood up 
against the coach roof. Use a pencil that just fits into the deck hole from 
the outside to make a mark on the backing plate. Alternately, if you feel 
confident that you won't drill a hole in your friend or wife/husband's hand, 
cautiously drill a small pilot hole from the top of the deck down into the 
backing plate. I suggest you use a hand (i.e. non-motorized) drill for 
safety and optimal control .

You can now take the backing plate and drill a hole that is slightly 
oversize relative to the diameter of the bolt to be used. Be careful to try 
to match the angle of the pilot hole.

An alternate strategy is to drill a hole. Bolt the backing board in place, 
and now drill a second hole. Insert the bolt and nut and tighten it only 
slightly. Now drill the subsequent holes, checking the bolt alignment at 
each stage.

You now can complete mounting the hardware, with the backing plate, using a 
suitable sealant.

An different method would be to use a steel or aluminum backing plate, but 
use slightly longer bolts than needed for this backing plate. Tighten the 
bolts with suitable nuts and sealant. Now take a thin piece of teak, trimmed 
in the same manner, but drill oversize holes to accommodate the outer 
diameter of the nuts, rather than the bolts. Place this over the backing 
plate, and hold in place with small finishing washers and nuts. Do not 
tighten this excessively. It is purely a decorative finish. The advantage of 
this method is that it is a lot easier to remove the hardware and the teak 
backing board, as the board is not coated with adhesive/sealant.

At this point, you realize why modern boats have soft headliners with 
zippers to reach the inside of the coach roof. Installing hardware is much 
simpler on those boats.

I might add, that this procedure was learned from bitter experience. Both 
the previous owner and I did it the stupid and sloppy way. Drill a hole from 
above all the way through the deck and the headliner, drop in a bolt with 
sealant, and crank down on the nut really hard. Watch the headliner be drawn 
up, and watch a really nice crack appear in the finish, and see it spread. 
Ouch! It is also likely that it will leak, since the new hardware is not 
really bolted down as securely as needed to prevent leaks, though this 
depends upon the force to be exerted on the hardware, and the direction of 
pull.

The quick way takes two hours. 10 minutes to do the quick and dirty part, 
and 1 hour and 50 minutes to correct the sloppy results. 
The cautious way takes 1 hour and 45 minutes.

Have fun. In my next life, I will come back as Bill Gates and hire someone 
to do all my boat work. 
regards, 
Harvey 
--- 
Harvey J. Karten 
Dept. Neurosciences 
UCSD 
La Jolla, CA 92093 
EMail: hjkarten@ucsd.edu 
Phone: (858)-534-4938 
FAX: (858)-534-6602 
 Tayana Site: ftp://ftp.sailnet.com/tayana