'91 Alumacraft 1648

[EAsports06rf]

I took everyone's advice and starting searching craigslist for a boat instead of buying new. I found what I thought to be a good deal, but problem was it was 215 miles away. (BTW it keeps telling me that photos can't be more than 800 pixels wide, and after resizing them on photobucket it still won't let me post them, so I provided direct links. Let me know if they don't work!)

Well, last week my father and I made the trek to look at the boat and ended up buying it:
https://i1088.photobucket.com/albums/i338/EAsports06rf/2012-11-18103922.jpg

The thing that stuck out to me was the fact that there was a 40hp yamaha powering this beast. I have never seen a 16ft jon have this rating... Turns out the previous owner had the transom beefed up and got the boat approved to run a 4-hp motor. (It has the tag to prove it)
https://i1088.photobucket.com/albums/i338/EAsports06rf/2012-11-18150234.jpg

It seems that the corners were beefed up as well as a cross bar to go across the transom. All fine and dandy....maybe...

Upon inspection everything looked pretty good to us. There were some decks and floors tacked down do we couldn't take a good look at the floors.

When I got it home I stripped everything that was not factory out of the boat. I found a few problems:
https://i1088.photobucket.com/albums/i338/EAsports06rf/2012-11-18150038-1.jpg

1: there are 4 cracked ribs on the boat. I have taken a couple snap shots of them:
https://i1088.photobucket.com/albums/i338/EAsports06rf/2012-11-181459321.jpg

I also saw that there was something on the boat to make it that black color. At first I thought it was just from the heat of welding (I know nothing about welding), but upon further inspection I noticed that there it was a foreign substance almost resembling tar. Also, there was some kind of spray foam surround the problem areas, I think this was a shotty job at preventing leaks. That is yet to be determined. But, besides that the boat seems to be ok. The outboard is worth more than what I paid for everything and it runs.

Now I can't do anything to the boat until I get these issues taken care of. My plan is to first obviously fix the cracked ribs, but I'm wondering what caused them. I'm thinking the following:

1. Rough water, though somewhat unlikely since the boat was run in the Susquehanna River.
2. Improper trailering, also unlikely because the boat sat in the river all year.
3. THE MOTOR. I'm really thinking this to be the culprit. Even though the guy beefed it up, does not mean it hasn't taken a toll on the boat.

NOTE: the guy I bought it from did not do ANY of the mods, the guy he bought it from did. I do not think he know anything about the boat. He told me he never even put air in the trailer tires, so I doubt he knew about these problems.

I'm trying to decided whether or not to weld aluminum angle over the existing rib, or have all new ribs fabricated to replace the existing ribs. I've seen a couple different threads discussing this, but would like someone's input for this particular case. If the consensus is that the large outboard is the culprit, I'll decide to sell it and get a 30hp motor.

So here's a summary of the first steps:
-get the ribs repaired
-locate leaky rivets and replace accordingly
-I'm thinking about steelflex for the bottom of the boat. Anyone disagree or think it's completely unnecessary after the proper repairs.
-use spray on bedliner for the inside bottom of the boat to be on the safe side.

Thanks for reading, and thanks in advance for advice!

 

[EAsports06rf]

After talking to a few friends and reading abt it in another thread, I'm wondering if taking the boat to the local trade school is a viable option to weld up the cracks. Some have even had work done for free! Has anyone gone this avenue?

 

[Kochy]

I run my boat in the susquehanna, but I live where the North and West Branch meet, during the summer months, people have some big boats out and they create some big wake, me and my buddies went up over a random wave that turned out to be a big one, I was sitting up on the front deck not in a seat, let just say, I had a bruised tail bone for a couple weeks. Take other big boats out of the picture then yeah its really calm.

Also about the ribs, I had cracks in my boats ribs when I tore it apart, we took it to some lady about 15 miles away who is good at welding aluminum, She reinforced the crap out of em welding, the weld mark was atleast a half inch across on the rib. That ain't going to break lol.

 

[EAsports06rf]

Good point. I never really thought about wake on the river. I've only fished it in the binghamton area. The river is a lot bigger down where I picked the boat up. Sorry to hear abt you tailbone!

Good to hear that you've had good luck with the weld job. I have located a couple of good welders in my area. Hopefully I can get this taken care of soon!

 

[hsiftac]

I wouldn't think replacing the whole rib would be necessary. Maybe if there are more cracks developing, but reinforcing it by having some angle welded over it I think would be plenty. Looks like a great boat though and I'm looking forward to more progress on it

 

[EAsports06rf]

Thanks! Hopefully I can get to the welders this week. God why do we have to work to make money? lol. I was hoping some bracing would be sufficient, as it will be considerably cheaper. Also picked up a used 67lb thrust motorguide bow mount trolling motor today for $125 bucks. Score! I can't wait to get these welds done and get started. There are so many awesome builds on this site I don't know where to begin.