Something I forgot to show before is the drain I installed in the bow section, where Tracker apparently thought the expanding foam would stop at "just the right place" to allow water to escape from the front deck pockets on top of the foam yet under the floor. :roll: I used a 1/4' mild steel rod and bent a small hook on the end to bore thru the foam, by running it along the keel strip, to the very front of the hull where it didn't fill with foam. The seams where deck and floor meet were all capable of allowing water to collect in there. I found that out when I towed it 485 mi. home in the rain, then bored a hole for the front nav. light socket. Lookie what I found, about 1-1/2 gal. of Tri-state water. The solution is a pc of 1/2" plastic drain line forced in the hole I bored in the foam. To keep from hurting the end of the tube while driving it in with a plastic shot filled mallet, I put the end inside of a 5/8" deepwell socket and used a 24" extension to pound on. I drove it all the way to that pocket under the deck, and stopped about 1/2" short of coming clear out of the foam, to act as a funnel to the tube. Problem solved. :?:
Something I did at an earlier stage in the build was to open up the access holes Tracker put in the bow. They were so small my wife couldn't even reach in to help me with the TM mount. I cut covers from.090 al.sheet, drilled the mounting holes, used self etching primer as always then painted the covers.
Now for the floor , It's 1/8" 5052 al. sheet, to accomodate at least 2 guys weight, one of whom is pushing 300#, without a lot of flexing. Originally I was going to cut it from a 5' x 10' pc., but fate came my way, when we got in a badly scratched and gouged sheet from a supplier ( who said keep it and they'd make it right). My boss is the greatest, she said I could use it for my floor. It meant cutting it with a splice in the middle, but that wasn't a problem in my mind. So now I have a very low cost floor, which will get coated anyway, so who cares about the gouges. I had made a cardboard template in one pc, so I just cut it where the splice was to be and went on from there. Cutting the overall sizes was a breeze with a10' shear to work on, ( Did I say, I LOVE my job ) :lol: Notched it out with a angle grinder and a cutoff disc, then finished the edges with a sanding disc. I had to trial fit a couple of times to get it where it was right , then glued the foam to the backside . I used 3M #77 Super spray adhesive to bond the foam to the alum. sheet. I used a palm sander w/150 grit metal sanding paper to give a good textured surface for it to stick to. I wiped it off with "gunwash" solvent to get rid of any oils and dust. Both surfaces were sprayed , let tack up for about 30 sec., (make sure it's where it's supposed to be, cause when they touch, it's TS if it's wrong), and roll together with a ballbat. I put the first small pc on and could pick up the whole sheet by just grabbing the foam, and got no separation what so ever.
I used ss countersunk machine screws to install the floor, and put 4200 sealer under the heads of ea. one before tightening for the final time.
That about does it for this chapter gang, still waiting for the spray on floor covering. In the meantime , it's off to look for a TM battery, a bow halogen light, and a few pcs for the trailer this boat will end up on. If You're in the market for a REALLY NICE trailer keep this one in mind, it'll be for sale soon.