Replacing Rub Rail Pearson 36

[westernspirit]

Hi, has anyone out there done this? Pearson 36 1985. Damaged 2 foot section port forward. Have obtained new rub rail from DR Marine; its a single 38 ft piece semirigid vinyl, L shaped that covers the hull/deck joint.. The deck hull joint is an outward extruded sandwich joint and it looks like the thru bolts (every 8 inches or so) go through the rub rail, through the joint and then the bolt heads are covered by removable teak toenails. One little design flaw for this boat is that water running down from the bow along this rail puddles in an area aft and doesn't drain well or make it to the further aft deck drain. I did get water intrusion here. As a result of the damage to the rub rail; it "lifted" a little and so I presume water made it in thru some of these thru bolts. So; I am assuming I take off the old rub rail inspect the holes, try to fix any wet core with epoxy, put down new rub rail with 3M 5200. Concerns/questions: Can I takeout all these bolts and not worry about my boat falling apart on me? Will that seam be stable enough without the bolts while repairing? Do I try to reuse the holes for the bolts in the joint or seal them all and redrill? This a pretty rigid piece of vinyl; it doesn't bend much, doesn't roll, there will be no stretching it, but does it need to be done when it is hot out or do I need to warm it with heater/heat gun to install? Any advice will be appreciated!

[SailCarpeDiem]

Man! These are all great questions! This is precisely the project I am contemplating on my 86' pearson 36-2. After all these years no one has had any feedback?

Ive looked into shipping the rail from DR marine but cross country freight more than doubles the cost of the rail. There's Taco aluminum rail that Ive seen another pearson owner install that looked good.

Bueller?