1984 bass tracker tournament tx redeaux

im KB and i live in katy texas, and this is my boat. It is a 1984 bass tracker tournament tx 17'. Its pushed by a brown stripe mercury 50 2-sroke. The tracker was my grandfathers boat, and i inherrited it when he passed away. Ive had it sitting in storage for the last year and a half, so i decided i needed to do something with it other than sit around and collect coolers. This is an arkansas boat that my grand father purchased brand new. I grew up fishing in this thing all over arkansas, and it brings back some of the happiest memories from my life. I hope it serves me and mine well for years to come, and brings on many new happy memories. I'm not going to do alot of modding to this thing, but i am updating what i can, and essentially going for a refresh. The boat and motor are solid platforms as the boat was always dried out after use, and it sat in a barn when not on the water. I will up date as i go, and i am shooting for completion by the first week of june. I have been working on this thing every weekend, and every night after work for the last 2 months. This boat will be used only in fresh water for fishing as well as duck hunting. Thanks to all for checking my tread out, and if anyone has questions or comments please feel free.

once got the boat home i started making a check list of what all i wanted to do, and i quickly realized that the whole thing had to be stripped down. I was concerned with hidden corrosion, but as i started tearing it down, i realized that the core components were still in great shape. I literally only had 3 stuck fasteners on the whole thing. Everything else backed right out! Moral of the story is - freshwater is best, and ALWAYS dry out your vessel once its put up. Oh yeah the other moral is that there is positively "no such thing as a free boat" [-X

my ol' lady and i work in the automotive recon field, so i had access to professional interior restoration products. The original seats cleaned up like the day they were manufactured. Blew my mind.

outboard stand is made out of 2 x12's bolted to an old ac delco engine stand. It rolls on castors and works perfectly. This is my old merc after a lil' spit shine. It has hydraulic trim and before i took the motor off it worked perfectly...... we shall see once she goes back on 8)

The old bass tracker stickers were terrible to remove! Took me a day and a half with a heat gun and a plastic scraper. For anyone that has trouble with old stickers leaving residue behind, i have the answer! After trying every solvent known to man on a saturated rag,we found that acetone and a magic eraser works like gang busters! The magic eraser eats the stuff off like its nothing! After i removed the stickers, i removed the motor.

i build a set of roll around bunks out of 2x4's and 4 moving dollies. I wased and wiped down the boat with acetone and rolled it up in my garage. I knew i wanted to paint the exterior of the boat, and there were 33 years of dings and scratches that needed to be taken care of. I used arine tex epoxy putty as a body filler and the stuff works great for the intended purpose. I fixed all cosmetic damage and sanded the boat down with 80 grit aluminum oxide sand paper on a electric da sander. Got pretty sick of sanding raw aluminum! Makes a mess!

no solvent i found would even touch my old carpet glue residue. More sanding with a little 180 grit. Many hours later, old glue was gone. I got a little crazy without doing any research and i poly resined and glass matted my decking in an attempt to water proof it and stiffen it up. Two days later i discovered on line that poly resin dosent mix well with wood........weeeelp. I knew i wanted to add a new trolling motor and a light bar so i went ahead and mocked everything up. I had a heck of a time trying to figure out how to run the set up i wanted, while having absolutely no room to work with up in the bow area. I finally decided i was going to have to offset the trolling motor, and raise it up so that it would clear my light bar when being lowered. I built a trolling motor mount out of oak that i later epoxied for water proofing. I realize that the offset trolling motor is not the best idea for straight line tracking, but i had to make sacrifices for what i wanted. The trolling motor is a 45lb. hand tiller minkota edge. The original minn that i took off of the boat was a 25lb. thrust that would only work in coves on windless days. The 45lb. thrust should be much better. I like running trot lines so the off set hand tiller will work for times when im by myself. I also mounted a new bow running light.

I'm working on the exact same boat you are, check out my thread and you can see mine so far. Yours is looking good so far and Ill be watching your thread. I'm going to try your acetone and magic eraser deal.

Looking good love these boats.

Love these old boats. Do a nice job and you really can retain a lot of value for your work.

Thanks for checking out my build ya'll. Bowler i will check your thread out for sure. I painted the boat with duralux aluminum boat paint. I self etched the surface with a dupont product, and then rolled the paint on with a roller. Once the paint cured i got a crew together and we flipped the boat for bottom paint. Been busy for the last week and a half! I applied the wetlander 3l system on the bottom of the hull. This product is awesome! Supper slick and once dried seems super durable. My ol' lady and i rolled the wetlander on with short nap rollers. The second and third layers fish eye like crazy, and the product has a short pot life to boot. Applied it looks great! Getting it applied properly was a little dicey. My pictures are all out of order...... weeeelp

Got my boat flipped back over last night. It took the wetlander about 7 days total to fully cure. Today i spent 11 hours camoing the boat. I used paints from parker as well as rustoleum. I used queen anne palm fronds, and pine tree needles for stencils. I used 5 different colors total. The results were better then i was expecting.. Pictures do not do it justice. Im going to give this a couple of days to sit and cure before i begin running new wires and start putting her back together. Im stoked!

Wow really turned out great.


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That camo job looks amazing! Great work!


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That camo turned out unbelievable! These boats are fun as they come together!

Great work - Thanks for sharing

hey thanks ya'll! I really appreciate the comments and support. I had alot of fun doing the camo. Its addictive though! Ive found myself looking around for things to throw my ol palm leaves on and go to town on! Lol when ive had free time from the hull i've been restoring my trailer out at my in laws house. My trailer was turdish on the exterior, and i wanted to get a new one, but my budget didnt allow it, so i cleaned it up, and hopefully i can get a few more years oit of it. The trailer had quite a bit of surface rust, and a bent tongue from being jack knifed while being pit in the barn, so it needed quite a bit of work. I was comcerned that i may have rust issues on the inside, but after cutting the tongue off, it ended up being in pretty good shape. Very little rust to be seen through the inside of the frame rails. My father in law, my ol lady and i stripped the whole thing down to bare metal. I then treated the steel with a conditioner and rust inhibitor, and re finished everything. I rolled the paint on, so she a 3 footer, but all in all it turned out pretty good! Pics to follow

i see alot of people blur license plates on line. Is it a problem that you can see mine? Not sure why folks do that.

I have a question perhaps somone can help me with. I replaced the springs on my trailer, and when i pulled the originals off there were no markings of any kind. They measured 25 1/4 eye to eye. The only springs i could find in that size were 2000lb capacity. Not sure how much my rig weighs, but i estimate it to be somewhere between 1100 to 1200 lbs including trailer. Am i going to be dragging a hay wagon down the road? Anyone know where i can find double eye leaf springs with around 800 to 1000 lb capacity, or will i be good with what i have? My axle that is currently on the trailer is overkill, so im not sure if that will make a difference in ride quality because of its un sprung weight. Its heavy with the wheels on it. Gotta be a good 100lbs. Im worried its gonna be ruff riding. Thanks

https://www.sdtrucksprings.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=335

Those are rated for 1500 lbs - I might go for the 2000lb ones. I certainly would not want to be using them as light as 800-1000. Figure your outboard is going to weigh about 200lb, trolling motor another 50, batteries probably 75+, 6 gal of fuel 36lbs...that's easily another 350lbs on top of the boat hull (840 per NADA) and trailer (200lbs? +/- sprung weight.) So that's easily 1,300lbs without getting into all the minutia.