I have a Wilbar 24’ round morada pool with some rusting stabilizer rails. I can see many places to get replacements but want to know if it’s safe to replace those parts while the pool is full of water. The liner was just recently replaced and if I remember correctly the location of the rust is on the opposite side of the pool from where the last track piece was installed.
Failing that is there any way to treat the damaged rails and maybe use gorilla tape to keep them from dropping any rust into the pool?
Thanks
You have a number of options - and doing it with a full pool will not be an issue. The pool walls carry the brunt of the force/weight of the water so, as long as your pool wall is in good condition, you can replace these without draining any water.
You can take the rusty rails off the pool and clean/sand/prep them and repaint them but, if they are too far gone, we may have replacements available.
Most Morada pools of your size use 16 of these Steel Top Rail - Cayman & Morada 56-5/32" - 27626. Get the 4-pack to save a few dollars on price or contact us if you need more and we would be happy to put together a quote for you.
Feel free to paste a few images of your pool if these are not the correct rails and if your pool does not have these top caps on it. The above-ground pool parts are not universal.
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I’ll take some photos and post.
So, the pool wall will not fail if the top stabilizer rails are removed? I assume that it’s important that the pool isn’t in use at the time as the walls are under additional stress with water movement.
I’ll get the info up shortly.
Correct - as long as the pool wall is in good condition there should be no issues. The top rails don’t provide much structure in a pool; the top stabilizers help when there is activity in the pool.
Having said that, I would not recommend leaving them off for any stretch of time.
Oh, I wasn’t going to remove anything until parts arrive and are treated and painted to prolong the useful life. The stabilizers are off only long enough to get replaced.
No photos yet but the count I did while in the pool is 18 stabilizers. Is that correct? I’ll measure next visit into the pool.
I did noodle out how to replace the rails with minimum effort. I’m just going to work my way around one at a time, the end result would be the gap moves each time I go to the next section. That way there’s only 1 stabilizer out at any one time. Not sure if that’s a good plan or not, so correct me if I’m full of crap. I’ll also clean up and paint the ones I remove that need some attention, then put them back after they’re dry.
Please let me know about the 18 vs 16 as you suggested in the first response. Mine are likely a smaller size than the 16 segment models
Good grief - please accept my apologies! I read stabilizer but was thinking top rail.
Your pool does use 18 of these Wilbar Inner Stabilizer, Steel, 52-1/2", Single - 38506 or you can replace them with the rust-free 38506 Resin Stabilizer Upgrade Kit for 24’ Round Pool - 38506-24-RESKIT.
You can treat the rusty ones (wire brush the rust off, prime and paint them). Keep the pool unoccupied while they are off.
Are the naval rust paints effective on these long term?
I replaced the top rails a couple of years back and painted all of them with rustoleum paint before they got installed. If I had known the stabilizers were rusting I would have removed them and treated them when I had the liner replaced recently.
That’s a good question. It’s pretty easy to paint the outside of these but painting the inside is a challenge. The spray paints at your local home center usually do a pretty good job on these but it’s pretty easy for water to get in and under the stabilizers and cause rust to start again.
Using something like Gorilla Tape might keep the rust from falling into the pool, but it also might hold water against them and cause further issues.