16' Bass Tracker makeover **** Finished *****

[MallardAddict]

I found this site this evening looking for ideas on the refab of a new boat and must say im impressed with the skills displayed, lots of ideas for me to ponder on my new journey. I fish a lot of small lakes as well as hunt lots of smallish lakes and sand dunes area so i was on the hunt for a boat to build to suit me.

What i came home with is a 1984 16' Bass Tracker jon boat (welded body with riveted ribs and bench seats). It looks good at a distance, but needs work. I got it and the 1994 caulkins trailer for $600.

Someone in its past cut the smallish aluminum front deck area and made a 3/4" plywood lid to store the twin batteries under. They also made a small storage box in front of that and made floorboards out of 1/2" plywood with carpet cover.

The middle bench shows a little redneck enginering with twin swivel seats with a cooler between them (seats only swivel about 6" due to cooler and sidewall of boat).

The rear bench also sports dual swivel seats (again too close to the sidewall to really swivel)

 

[MallardAddict]

So today i began the restoration into what i believe is the ultimate duck boat / warmwater fish killer. I removed everything i could, to include the floors, rotten plywood hatches and boxes, poor wiring job, the seats and rod holders. If it wasnt welded or riveted down it came out this evening.

Flipped her over to attack the paint and found atleast 10 layers of paint on the outside. Brushed on a coat of Mar-Hyde Talstrip II (this stuff was killer, paint was blistering and cracking within 2 minutes of application), waited 30 minutes and hit the works with a 1500 psi pressure washer. Almost all of the paint came off in round 1 (round 2 tommorow on the remaining patches where i must have been thin on the application).

will try to finish stripping the outside tommorow. The interior paint is pretty good, so i will likely just sand down the old runs, wipe it down and paint it.

 

[MallardAddict]

So with a little over 4 hours into it the demolition is almost over.

Now as to plans:

1. Cover the tops of the 2 bench seats with 3/4" marine ply (sealed first) with marine carpet. Will install the ply with stainless fasteners and Rivnuts with 3m 5200.

2. Coat bottom and sides up to the the spray rail with Coat-it to provide a quality seal as well as some impact protection as this is a duck boat after all.

3: Spray undercoating on floor and up sides to the level of the floorboards for sound deadening as well as added insurance against leaks.

4. Paint entire boat inside and out with Parker's Duck Boat paint in Hunter Green

5. Rebuild bow storage/battery boxes as well as extend the small storage area out 12" more to allow mounting of swivel seat. I plan to use 5/8" marine plywood (again sealed and covered in marine carpet) for the boxes with Aluminum angle for support/bracketing. Will use 3/4" marine plywood (sealed and carpeted) for the lids.

6. Rebuild floor boards with 5/8" marine ply again sealed and topped with marine carpet.

7. Reinstall dual batteries with switch and rewire boat back to rear bench seat. I plan to install a waterproof sprinkler control box on the rear bench to hold all wiring and switches as well as a place to mount my fish finder.

8. Install and wire up fish finder, nav lights, set of 100 watt driving lights (running in the dark in the marsh hunting), bilge pump and trolling motor connector.

*** Currently on the look out for a nice used 40-55lb thrust trolling motor and a 25-30 hp tiller outboard ***

Let me know what ya think, i got thick skin. :lol: I am always open to suggestions and pictures always help to see how other guys did this.

 

[wolfmjc]

welcome!!
looks like a great start to a good project...nice work on the paint strippin, looks like you made short work of those 10 layers!

 

[fishluvme]

wow the shell looks good..looks like that would be a fun project..

 

[huntinfool]

Welcome! Looks like a great start and I can't wait to see the finished boat.

 

[MallardAddict]

Thanks for the encouragement guys, im thinking this hull will work well for us.

Not much to report, round 2 of stripping was more of the same. Applied the Talstrip,waited 30 minutes and hit it with the pressure washer. This got probably 98% of the paint off without sanding or scraping.

A buddy has a heated shop so the boat got moved there yesterday afternoon for paint prep. It took us about 2 hrs to get all the nooks and crannies to bare metal on the exterior:

The hull had a few small dents in the bottom, but all welds looked good. WE did find some erosion around the bow eye, so that was removed, ground back to good metal and filled with JB Weld. After that was hard and sanded back to level, we drilled the hole the proper size and installed a new eye with aluminum plate on each side for reinforcement. Masked her off at the spray rail mid hull and rolled the first coat of Coat-it on the bottom, nose and transom:

Work will keep me away from working on the boat until monday when i plan to roll on a second coat of Coat-it that will run up to the masking on the drip rail. Temps here have been pretty low so weather depending, i hope to have the hull painted by the end of next weekend.

 

[MallardAddict]

Not too much to report as work got in the way, None the less, today I got the sides coated in Coat-it and the second coat on the bottom. Still planning to get the bare sides primed and the outside and bottom painted this weekend.

 

[MallardAddict]

Friday we got the epoxy coats all sanded out. That darn Coat-It is some hard stuff. We primed all the bare metal with 3 coats of SEM self etching primer, was very impressed with how this product covered the metal and the dry primer looked GREAT. The prep work all looked really good and I was eager to spray color. I hate waiting but luckily we had plenty of beer and some bacon wrapped venison tenderloin to keep me busy.

.

Gave the primer 24 hours to cure in a heated shop and lightly sanded out the few runs that developed. Shot 2 decent coats of the Parkers Hunter Green and really happy with the results so far:

Hopefully get a few more coats on the outside, then back on the trailer it goes to do the floorboards, rebuild the storage compartments recarpet all of that, rewire and get the inside painted.

Timeline is hopefully to be done in the next 2 weeks work allowing. The search for the right motor has intensified as i never figured i would be this far along in 2 weeks. its good to have buddies and the proper equipment.

 

[Zum]

Sounds good...but
You have to keep your pictures on photobucket for us to see them.

 

[MallardAddict]

sorry Zum, after i posted the links to the new pictures i decided to start a seperate album on my photobucket for the boat build pics. didnt realize they wouldnt show. Should be all good now.

 

[MallardAddict]

Another quick update for the weekend. Goat coat 3 and 4 on today and its building up well and looking better each coat but we have put them on fairly thin.

Heres coat 4 after a hour:

Transom:

 

[Zum]

Looking great.
Hope you find the motor you want so you can get out on the water.

 

[bluegillfisher]

Great job. Looking forward to seeing what you do with rest of project.
Thanks for posting.

 

[MallardAddict]

I knew it was too good to be true that things would go this easily.

We flipped the boat back over onto the trailer monday night to attack the inside. Everything was going well on the sanding runs and preparing to paint over the old paint until i decided to scrape the old paint off the transom wood. Apparently i never checked it before and it was all rotten!!!!

Got the wood all out and the old bolts, but it required me grinding off the new epoxy and paint from the transom. Oh well it will be a 6 hour lesson in transom repair, but i have a 2.5# container of coat it still and plenty of paint. will get that fixed in the next few days and get back to the inside.

 

[Zum]

Man,sucks to miss that one.
Atleast you'll know it will be stong when you get her in the water.

 

[MallardAddict]

Thing is I am not entirely sure how I missed it. I could have sworn I poked at it before I tore into the bottom.

And yes strong it will be as its 2 pieces of 5/8" ply laminated with Marine Systems epoxy. Once cut to size and test fit to get all the holes drilled I will seal the edged and coat the whole thing in the Marine System epoxy and paint it to match the inside. The front will also have a 16 ga piece of aluminum bolted in to take the motor clamps abuse.

Overkill indeed but I want to do it once and forget about it for the next 20 years!

I needed more ply anyways as I talked myself out of the sprinkler control box for my switches and fishfinder. Gonna build one from ply and carpet it.

 

[MallardAddict]

Its been a while since i updated this or put any pictures up, so heres where it stands now.

I cut and glued the 2 pieces of 5/8" plywood for the new transom then coat both faces and all edges in Marine Systems Epoxy. I think it turned out pretty good.

After the new transom piece was dry i had to source a new piece of metal for the motor to clamp too. We had a busted up Diamond Plate tool box that sacrificed its lid to the cause.

Here it is all bolted up (metal still in pimer) with new stainless hardware and all bolts sealed with 3M 5200. (had to flip this picture, as the boat is upside down with wet Coat-It on the exterior transom, no pics of this) to seal the whole transom as 1 unit.

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We had some diamond plate scrap left over and between beers i decided to fold it up to make a small box to mount my switches in and fish finder on top. The box is 19" long X 8" tall. Its 8" wide at the top and 3" wide at the bottom following the slope of the side in the back to get a parallel face on the front. In this picture the box is in the raw, this is after mock up (again pic is flipped for posting). The box is mounted between the first rib and the rear bench on the right side of the boat when looking from the rear. (the bench is visible on the right side of the picture)

And here is the box out of the boat and in primer.

Hopefully tommorow I will get any runs sanded out of the new epoxy and get the transom painted. The plan is to have the outside completely painted by Friday so we can get the boat back on the trailer and finish the inside.

Hopefully the next update will show the boat on the trailer with the interior paint completed.

 

[bluegillfisher]

That's looking great. I wish I a brake to bend sheet metal. Keep posting the pictures.

Marion

 

[MallardAddict]

Work and family obligations have severly limited my boat work time, but heres an update.

We got the ply cut for the front storage compartment as well as the framing in. All the framing will be 1"x 1/8" aluminum, the 1/16th is just in there temporarily:

All the floorboards and the plywood for the tops of the seats is all cut and fit:

Hope to have all the wood sealed, carpeted and installed, as well as all of the wiring done by the end of next weekend as thats will be my next real chance to work on it.