My Tracker 1542.

Hello Everyone. First let me say thank you to all posters who gave ideas. This site as provided me with more ideas than I used.

A little history first. I purchased the 1542 a year ago and spent last spring and summer adding a piece at a time. About 18 months prior to the 1542 I was driving around town and saw a 1956 Alumacraft. It was a 12 foot and reminded me of the hours spent with my dad and uncle fishing. It was a perfect time for me to resume a favorite part of my youth. Time on the water.

I spent a season fishing in the little boat and discovered a sad fact. The sea legs of my youth were no more and they made it impossible for me to use such a small boat. So I spent the summer slow trolling and saving up for the Tracker.

History over. The photos I'm including are me uncovering the boat for 2016 and thought I would share my build and maybe 1 or 2 ideas I had that my be of use to some. If so, I have given a little back for all I have taken.

I know I'll have more bad weather, but I may also have some good weather. Time to be prepared for the nice days and ignoring the bad days. This picture is my way of solving the tarp support problem. Last year it looked more like an empty plastic swimming pool than boat cover.

Mission accomplished! :beer: That's an awesome idea for tarp support!!

Here are the only two fotos of my Alumacraft in use and a few of the Tracker when I was riding around and figuring out what went where. The Yamaha 6hp you see came with the Alumacraft, when empty the 6hp pushed the 1542 as fast as the 12 foot Alumacraft, about 13 mph.

The three depth finders are 1 gps/map Lowrance and 2 4hdi Lowrance. 1 is standard and the other is downscan. I thought of using one as a regular and the other downscan. that didn't work as well as I thought, but now with the 1542 I can use one in front and one int he back.

My only advice to new builders is spent some time in the boat and see what goes where.

I don't have any pictures of me constructing my rear floor. My only advice here is to buy good carpet, money is tight most of the time and I bought the cheap stuff from Lowes. Spend extra and get carpet that can be folded around corners easily. Mine was stiff and a pain in the ...!

I used 3/4 inch for my floor because I thought if I used the extra wood in the front, I wouldn't need support underneath. I put a low floor up front , but it still flexes a little. I'll be fixing that over the next few days. Some 2x2's underneath should solve my flex problems.

In the pictures below you will see that I used some exterior foam between the ribs for sound, and a little flotation. And I made my floor in 2 pieces. I'm alone and it was easier to construct everything in smaller pieces than manhandle larger a heavier piece. I have ordered some Aluminum angle from online metals that I will use to keep the floor in the boat. I'll post those pictures next week.

Another reason to use smaller pieces is the easy disassembly of the build. during storage and long periods of non use I can move my wood, batteries, and coolers indoors. Now that I purchsed a fitted cover that might not be needed anymore, but who knows.

Last post today. My back is limited and it's reached the end for today. Last 2 fotos, they show how I mounted the cooler I use for storage/limited use live-well. I have a collapsible cup holder and mounting ring for bottle opener, pliers and a UT coolie for my beverages.

My electronics are all wired in via plugs. I just unplug my gps/fish finder, loosen the hardware and the cooler comes indoors.
I will show the connections later.

Have a good day folks.

Nice work. I have a 1542 and had a blast setting it up.

These photos show how I modified my clamp on seat bases. I don't know the bench sizes on other brands of jon boat, but the trackers are to large for the clamp on seat mounts. I used 2 Coupling Nuts to add a length of all thread to make the clamp open larger.

My knees prevent me from just standing up at will, I need a little height to make it easier. 4 more Coupling Nuts allowed me to add 1 1/2 inches to the height of my seat. that plus a flotation cushion gives me about 3 1/2 more inches in height.

The clamp on seats will shift if your not always facing forward. I solved that by using some 3/8 wire clamps, I just used small SS screws tightened lightly to prevent shifting. I showed only one picture, but I screwed down both sides.

The black and red wires are for my motor to reach my battery. Waiting on my nephew to swing by to give me a hand moving my motor from the spare bedroom outside. That's my goal for tomorrow.

I hope you all have good a weekend.

Here are some pictures of my new motor, a Tohatsu 9.8 Electric start. The Trail tech tach/hour meter in foto 2 is not mounted anywhere yet, haven't decided where it should go.

Finished putting back floor in. Just the trolling motor battery to go. It will go on opposite side from Motor battery.

Just about to start installing front deck. The carpeted piece in this foto is 2 3/4" thick cedar boards 6" high. I sealed the boards and glued together. I don't know why I carpeted the boards, seemed like a good idea at the time. Mounted to the bench seat with 3 toggle bolts. I wanted to used the wood to mount the braces for my floor support, less holes in the bench seat.

I like how you did the clamp seat. I didn't something different.


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Here are the pieces of my front deck going in. I'll be putting support underneath the deck after payday next week. But it'll work just fine for a day or three.

I used an old cooler for my seat base. To stop the cooler from collapsing I used some old wood as my base. To lift seat to height that I liked, I used 4"x1"(really closer to 3.5x.75) pvc board. Just kept building it up till I liked the height. I used the same board for my transducer mound.