Old Coleman Crawdad .... Need some help

[joedogg]

I scored a free Crawdad! Really don't know the age of it, just that it's been around the lake a few times. I've had it sitting on the side of the house for a while and finally got that bug to fix her up. Where to start. She need a total overhaul. My biggest concern is the metal poles that run along the bottom of the boat. They have been totally compromised (pitted and one bent and cracked). I tried to purchase some fence posts from HD but they are too fat to reuse the clamps that hold everything together. Also need to rebuild seating and front/rear boxes. Gonna try to keep some of the foam.l

So of course my question to anyone that's reading is .... Where can I buy these? (Doubt it) or If anyone has rebuilt the guts of a Crawdad so that she doesn't weigh too much? ie. Materials or pics would be great.

I already gutted her before any pics, but I will be sure to load some soon.

Thanks in advance!
Joedogg

 

[joedogg]

Here's some pics I found. Not the best but you get the idea.

 

[Jake11]

just get the outer diameter and call around and find some aluminum round tube to match shouldnt be that hard to come by.

 

[joedogg]

I was already looking into that. Hopefully they sell the same clamps. I would rather have all new. But just in case, if there was a different type of set up that someone already did or other methods. I'm up for any ideas. The lighter the weight the better!!

 

[Jake11]

i dont know about those clamps. I cant really see them very well in the pictures but i'm sure there's something out there that will work. if you're looking to replace with all original stuff you could try sending an email to coleman. them may be able to let you know where to get it or an acceptable substitute.

 

[Johnny]

Look somewhere on the hull to see what material it is made of.
if it is HDPE - if you ever want to fix a hole in it, you can melt it
with a soldering iron to fill in the defect. (or so they say).
Just like repairing the Kayak hull. Lots of videos on YouTube about that.