Weekend boat mods--well, sort of.

After being exiled to Atlanta for seven years, I returned to Knoxville last summer. When I lived here before I had a Grumman 1542 and an Evinrude 30hp motor that was just about perfect for the fishing I do, so last October I bought a G3 1544LW and a Yamaha 25hp 2-stroke motor. I wanted to fix it up just like my Grumman but the mods had to be simple in order to keep it light so I could haul it around with my little Honda Civic. About all I wanted to do was extend the deck, put in pedestal seats, mount a trolling motor, fish finder, and rod holders, and wire it.

We needed to keep the mods simple. As much as I would have liked to have built hatches and a few other things, my knowledge of tools is generally limited to those tools used for the application of brute force and anything more complicated than that usually results in a trip to the emergency room. Instead, I've got plenty of storage space under the deck. Also, my brother is good with tools but lives in Atlanta, and since we didn't have access to a garage, a long-term mod project was out of the question. My brother came up over New Year's and we worked on the mods for about three days. Here's what we came up with. Simple but it's all I need. Sorry we didn't take pictures of the work in progress.

Also, sorry about posting these in separate topics but for the life of me I can't seem to figure out how to get them out of Photobucket all at once and I get kicked off the page unless I post them separately.

Another view.

Sweet.......Everyone should make their mods to fit their applications....And if that suits you thats all that matters anyways..........................JIGGY

The reason I say "sort of" is because I did some other stuff later such as putting split flex tubing around the trolling motor wires and mounting the transducer wire under the gunwhale using cable clamps.

Good job Deadmeat. Simple and Functional.

Last pic. We carpeted the deck and rear seat with marine carpet that was laid to the edges of the boat, not rolled and tucked under as some folks do. We put the metal carpet edge thingies along the edges to help keep the carpet down and along the angles of the deck and rear seat to prevent wear. On my last boat this seemed like where wear would show up first. We used 6-gauge wire for the trolling motor.

Nice Job. I am in the process of starting a build. Well done agian

Nice work! 8)


I've yet to figure out if bulk pics can be loaded from Photobucket either. What I do, although tedious, is to leave the posting thread open here, have Photobucket open in another window, then manually copy the links into the posting thread, then click on Submit.

looks like you have it just the way you need it. nice work

Looks great! Nice work.

Nice work and I like how you managed to keep the weight down.
Is the battery in the rear?

Yes, I'm running two batteries, both in the rear. One is for the big motor and the other for the trolling motor and fish finder. The balance seems pretty good at this point.

Deadmeat said:

Yes, I'm running two batteries, both in the rear. One is for the big motor and the other for the trolling motor and fish finder. The balance seems pretty good at this point.

Click to expand...

Sounds good. Btw, beautiful country down there. I love the smokies, been there a few times on vacation. Would love to fish that area some day.

It's more than beautiful. That's why I've lived here four different times. I go somewhere and always seem to come back.

Simple but effective, hey you pull that with that grey Honda? watch out on the ramp...

Yep, and I pulled a boat just like this one for 16 years with an old 1985 Honda Civic. Worked just fine.

awsome rig, and great job, very simple, i like how you kept the weight down in order to trailer it, with less weight have you noticed a difference the speed on the water, im guess that 25hp moves that little boat pretty good. one last thing, you ever had it on Douglas lake in sevierville/jefferson city area. i'm from gatlinburg and can't wait to retire from the air force and get back home.

that thing looks good. it is all that you need to get to where the fishies live

Very nice setup. Looks like it's ready for some serious fishing.