Sliding Hatch Door Squeel

[norbert]

had a dusty slip for years and the gelcoat in the hatch track had really sanded down! to prevent the hatch of sawing thru the deck i had the same idea as frank c and glued velcro strips in the track under the hatch. works smoothly for 1 year now.

[HERNDON]

I took a flat bastard file this afternoon to the front of the hatch
and after 3 minutes filing and sliding the hatch the noise was gone.
It was the front of the hatch as was suggested.
My noise was a prehistoric animal screaming....really...
No I am not from the Jurassic period... just the 60s/70s in the
San Francisco Bay.

You guys are great !!!!!!!

Thanks.....Rob

My Family thinks I am very smart as I go and fix a problem and it
always works. SSShhhhh don t tell.

[craiglaforce]

Good idea, I'll have to check my hatch also. one time when I was returning to the boat at 1 am after a trip to the rest room, the hatch made the jurassic noise and a large cabin cruiser aimed their zillion candle power spotlight at me. Thought I was on stage at Carnegie Hall.

Flat bastard file not fat right?

[Zoran]

My hatch is now silent. I took it off and wear was clearly visible on the hatch and on the tracks. Fuzzy side of self sticking velcro on the hach and it is now silent and so easy to move. All together 1/2 hour, best mode ever. I love it silent. I spend all day today cleaning my boat and I am going sailing tommorow in a clean and nice smelling boat with very silent hatch.

Zoran

[Don T]

Hello:
I have put much thought into this because my hatch has just started to make contact/noise. I'm not in favor of using any soft material in the tracks because it will trap dirt & sand which will increase wear (like nylon chair feet that hold little rocks and badly scratch your hardwood floor). I'm not in favor of lubricating the tracks either because I tried it once and dang near killed myself up on deck dowsing the main when the hatch slid out from under me.
I'm thinking of making full length stainless track inserts and using 3M 5200 to glue them in. No contact with my aluminum hatch retainers to eliminate electrolysis. Make brass runners for the hatch (stainless to stainless contact would gall) and glue or screw them into shallow recesses to make up for wear. Should be easy to clean and last a long time, heck my hatch made it 10 years. Friction should remain fairly constant. Right now unless I regularly flush the tracks with water the hatch gets stiff. What I'm looking for is sufficient break away friction with my weight on the hatch but relative easy movement unloaded (so the wife doesn't complain).
I know, the simple answer is to paint fresh gel coat on both surfaces to make up for wear and wait another 10 years.

[Dimitri-2000X-Tampa]

My Family thinks I am very smart as I go and fix a problem and it
always works. SSShhhhh don t tell.

Ha, I thought I would do my wife a favor and file down the front of the hatch last weekend because she once complained about the noise. But once I made it silent, she complained that how would we know if the kids were trying to get out in the night when we are asleep now... I just can't win!

Mine took quite a bit of filing and there are cracks in the gelcoat along the middle of that edge...I guess from where the vibration has been occuring. I wonder how many of us were filing last weekend.

[Dimitri-2000X-Tampa]

Hello:
I'm thinking of making full length stainless track inserts and using 3M 5200 to glue them in. No contact with my aluminum hatch retainers to eliminate electrolysis. Make brass runners for the hatch (stainless to stainless contact would gall) and glue or screw them into shallow recesses to make up for wear. Should be easy to clean and last a long time, heck my hatch made it 10 years. Friction should remain fairly constant. Right now unless I regularly flush the tracks with water the hatch gets stiff. What I'm looking for is sufficient break away friction with my weight on the hatch but relative easy movement unloaded (so the wife doesn't complain).
I know, the simple answer is to paint fresh gel coat on both surfaces to make up for wear and wait another 10 years.

Don, I think the simple answer is 10-15 minutes of filing with a rough file

[Don T]

Hello:
Well, I don't know what the fit was like when you got your boat but mine had a large gap. I would have to say over 50% of the hatch foot has been worn away. Removing more material just doesn't seem right.

[Dimitri-2000X-Tampa]

Not from the hatch foot. The sound comes from the front lip dragging across the cabin top in the middle. If you sit by the mast while you slide open the hatch, you can see it happen. The vibration of the lip amplified by the cabin is what makes the noise. Probably the wear on the hatch foot over the last 10 years has caused the lip to sink further and contact the cabin top. Basically, while the hatch is open, the only contact with the cabin top should be the hatch feet, not the middle part of the front of the hatch.

[Frank C]

Not from the hatch foot. The sound comes from the front lip dragging across the cabin top in the middle. If you sit by the mast while you slide open the hatch, you can see it happen. The vibration of the lip amplified by the cabin is what makes the noise. Probably the wear on the hatch foot over the last 10 years has caused ...

True enough, on some boats there may be two different problems causing hatch squeal. On my boat, the front lip never touched the deck, and the sound was more like scuffing, caused by grit in the tracks, carried there by rain and wind.

There's no completely permanent solution ... you cannot avoid cleaning the tracks periodically, but having once removed and replaced the hatch, you won't shy from the task. Observation: adhering 3 velcro patches around each side edge of the hatch itself (not the track) will elevate the hatch by ~ one-eighth inch. They also quiet the grinding, scuffing noise between cleanings.

[Harry van der Meer]

How do you get the velco patches on the hatch without removing the hatch? How does this stand up against the elements or do you replace them every month or so?

[Frank C]

How do you get the velco patches on the hatch without removing the hatch? How does this stand up against the elements or do you replace them every month or so?

Harry,
It's better to remove the hatch, and your fix will easily last a couple of years. My hatch removal was not voluntary, as revealed below. Rather than type the description into this thread, I added it to the mods page as Quiet your Sliding Hatch (& Flying Hatch Warning).

[Don T]

Hello:
Geez what I meant was, if the problem is caused by material worn away from the hatch foot, it doesn't make sense to remove material from the hatch front to accomodate the worn part. I prefer to come up with a long term permanent solution. Like stainless deck tracks and brass "runners" that can be replaced. I would prefer to do something before the hatch feet are completely gone.

[26Xsam]

To day I put velco under my hatch. What a differance .No more nails on the chalk board
Shure it will hold some dirt but it's one eazy fix. It can't be as bad as before.
It shure sounds much better & does not seem to slide to eazy. Will see how long it last.

This site is great!

Thanks to all who post here!

Sam

[Duane Dunn, Allegro]

I took a dremel with a sanding drum to the front edge of mine. Took off about a 1/4" of material most of the way across. The hatch is completely silent now. The noise has nothing to do with the part that slides on the sides, it's the front lip rubbing on the nonskid. Adding velcro or anything that lifts it up should have the same effect as sanding down the lip.