I spent a little time over the weekend working on the bracket. I wanted to get the existing caulking off of the mounting surface so I could see how much corrosion I need to address and then make a template for checking fit against the transom.
The good news is the caulking came off w/out too much trouble. The bad news is it revealed a bit more corrosion that I wanted to see. Most of it is around the bottom four mounting holes of the tub. I'm not real worried about it though as I should easily be able to patch up the areas with some gray Marine Tex, or just have a welding shop fill them in.
Anyway, I also got the template made up using some thin scrap wood and a hot glue gun. My main motivation behind doing this was to be able to mark and drill all the bracket mounting holes BEFORE I install the new transom. That way I can use those holes for thru-bolts when I bed the core and not have to randomly drill more holes that I really need.
I tried to get the template positioned on the transom, but it was proving to be too much of a pain in the neck with the ends of the tarp hanging down. I only had a short window in which to work, so I didn't bother to tie them back. I got the template lined up with the centerline mark I had previously made on the transom, but I got a little thrown off when I discovered that the transom doesn't seem to be symmetrical (there's more distance from the hull bottom to the rubrail on the stbd side than on the port). So, I gave up until I have more time to get the cover out of the way and take accurate measurements.
I was going to snap a few pics, but the batteries in my camera were dead and my supply of spare AA's was all used up...