I'm in the process of removing, rebuilding, rebedding the hatches on my 86 27. It appears the original bedding material was plumbers putty. The hatch came out real easy and the compound was still soft grey and pliable. Anybody know for sure?
The second hatch is a different story. Looks like someone else already removed it and rebedded with 5200. It might have to come out in pieces, it's in that good.
I found that DeBond works great on 5200. It still takes a little elbow grease, but still works. It does this by chemically unlinking the polyurethane molecular structure.
Hope this helps.
The hatch base came out in pieces. I tried to get some solvent worked in but after a couple days out came the sawzall. The people at pompenette will sell just the base for $187, but a whole new complete hatch from defender is 301. I thik I'll spend the extra hundred and get the new one. And when it goes back in NO 5200, maybe some sikaflex.