1997 Tracker 185 Pro Jet (MV1850) rebuild

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Here are some pics from my brother's camera phone from the night.
I'll get better ones off the real camera later...
 

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Late the party, I didn't see this thread 'til today...

All I can say is WOW! What an awesome project. Of course I'm sorry to hear of your struggles, but die hard River Rats never stop...no matter what hurdles Old Man River throws at ya!

Great Job!
 
Wow, I just checked out this build. Nice work! Especially on squaring up the hull and tunnel. =D>

Also, an excellent idea on the complete removal of the center strake, those cause cavitation. I cut the center strake off my boat, about 2 foot forward of the jet intake, and fish-plated that area with a strip of 3" X 1/4" aluminum flat stock. But if I had it to do over again, I'd remove the entire center strake, and fish plate the whole thing with the 1/4" x 3" plate. It serves the same purpose as the angle/gutter, tying the 2 halves of the boat's hull together, but with a little added strength when compared to the .100" angle or gutter, or in the case of my boat, a piece of 2" x 3/16" aluminum angle serving as a keel to replace the original one that corrosion destroyed.

Sorry to hear about the hull damage to your boat, though, that's a bummer. Glad no one was hurt, and the boat was easily recoverable.

But, one good thing your horror story, it gave me a wake-up call, as I had been considering taking my jetboat to the fall line of the PeeDee River at Cheraw, SC, where the navigable river ends, and it meets a fall line, with rocks, boulders, and swift water.... as it goes toward the Blewitt Falls dam at Rockingham, NC.

As my jetboat is ALSO a 15 year old hull made of .100" material, as well as being a little weaker from slight corrosion pitting from marine use....something tells me I'd better stay my *** off that particular stretch of river, or I might be writing a similar story to yours. I've got 4 bilge pumps aboard my boat, with a combined GPH of about 2,800, as well as flotation foam in between the outer and inner hull. But I don't want to test it and find out!

I think I'll just stick to the lowcountry rivers, with logs and sandbars, they don't inflict instantaneous catastrophic damage like boulders or sharp rocks.
 
Some pics of the event, in no particular order:

Next morning when I went to retrieve it from the field "What is a BOAT doing in the middle of a field?":
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Here is the place we hit... just looking at the river, it certainly looks navigatable... but if you look close you see those hidden rocks.
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You really don't want to ever have to load your boat like this:
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This shows a bottom shot where the Hardline came off, but no holes:
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This is what sunk it, view from the front:
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View from the back:
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All in all, I gotta say, the Hardline seems to have held up pretty well, considering the boat was drug up a riverbank and drug through the woods to get to the field.
 
What a bummer, I really enjoyed watching you build.....Here in Florida the airboats I see have really thick aluminum and skid plates to jump stumps and sand bars. I would think that the way you built the intake combined with some thicker aluminum plates on the bottom would allow you to jump any rock in the river. The bass boat hull thickness is just not made for solid rock....as you proved....Keep up the good work you still did an awesome job on you boat. On a side note what the heck do think the farmer or deer thought of when they walked up out of the woods and saw your boat......I bet it was priceless.
 
so, if you had to do anything different with this build, would it have been UHMW on the hull? I am looking at a similar boat right now on craigslist.com https://nashville.craigslist.org/boa/3342926615.html
 
J Hartman said:
so, if you had to do anything different with this build, would it have been UHMW on the hull? I am looking at a similar boat right now on craigslist.com https://nashville.craigslist.org/boa/3342926615.html

I think the 2000 Bass Tracker uses a slightly thicker hull than my 1997, but I'm not sure, and I think it may be all welded instead of rivets, so comparing it to mine may not be valid.

Mine, I don't think UHMW would have helped much -- the hull is still too thin to be banging around on any rocks.

That boat on craigslist would be fine for navigating shallower water than where a prop could go, but it's not meant to hit the river bottom, it's meant to not bang up a prop. Adding UHMW may give you a slight edge, but won't make it into something it's not.

Tip: Whenever buying a Sportjet boat, make sure it starts good and make sure it can get up on plane -- if not, the fix may be anything from simple to horrific, there's a lot that can go wrong to debug. It's far easier to have a 100% working boat and then fix problems individually as they arise. Given a boat with starting or planing issues, good luck if you're not an expert on them. Ask "Does it get on plane with 2 guys in it, and if so, how fast does it go?" Google for "Sportjet hard start" and "Sportjet trouble getting on plane" and see how many threads have happy resolutions -- very few and those are usually fairly major/expensive fixes. Don't get me wrong, I love Sportjets, but I've seen lots that have unresolved planing and starting issues (including mine and the donor boat I bought).
 
J Hartman said:
so, if you had to do anything different with this build, would it have been UHMW on the hull?

Don't know about novicaine, but this thread has made a believer out of me, in the use of UHMW. When I do my next jetboat build, it's gonna be a 3/16" bottom, with UHMW for additional insurance. THEN I know I could run the Pee Dee between Cheraw and Rockingham, and not have to worry about the numerous rocks in that river that have yet to be hit by an unfortunate boater.
 
Love the project and cannot believe it sank so soon. I just purchased a 1998 tracker with a 120 sport jet. I need a new intake grate, mine has on grate missing. Any ideas where I can get one?

Thanks in advance,

Shane.
 
F250shane said:
Love the project and cannot believe it sank so soon. I just purchased a 1998 tracker with a 120 sport jet. I need a new intake grate, mine has on grate missing. Any ideas where I can get one?
Thanks in advance,
Shane.

I bought the last new one Mercury had last year, so eBay is your best shot.

Just a thought, but if you're going to be running the boat a long time, look for a 95-97 fiberglass sport jet boat with a 120 that runs... you can pick them up pretty reasonable, 1-2k ... and use that engine and pump for spare parts. You'll quickly burn that much up on buying sj120 parts from Mercury if something goes wrong and you want to repair it.
 
Update 10/20/2020...

I posted this whole mess of a project, still sitting around my shop in pieces, to the for-sale section:

If you're interested:
https://forum.tinboats.net/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=48140

Thanks!!
 

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