Alumacraft 1457

[mrbillsfan311]

First off, great forum! Lots of knowledge! I'm new to the site and I'm already picking up a lot of info. I recently traded my G1 golf cart & homemade trailer for an Alumacraft 1457 (that's what the model plate says) and trailer. The boat has plenty of work to do before it can fish, mostly cleaning because it was basically pulled up and parked without a cover a few years ago and has been sitting there ever since.
I would like to deck part of the boat, mostly the very front and part of the stern, however, I'm concerned about weight. The rating is 630lbs but by the time you factor in 2 beer bellies, 1 or 2 batteries, a gas tank & outboard plus gear and a cooler, 630lbs adds up fast and the thought of adding a bunch of wood concerns me. I'm not a pro carpenter but own a woodworking shop and have done plenty of remodeling to know wood tends to get very heavy. So, has anyone used 2x4 steel studs? How about sheet aluminum wrapped with carpet for the deck?
I don't have a gas engine but an older trolling motor and I'm thinking about going all electric. My concern is battery life and more weight. I'd like to add a radio, cabin lights and a small live well and the boat already has a working bilg pump & depth finder. If I add an extra trolling motor, won't I need 2 or 3 batteries to keep up with demand, thus adding more weight, right? What about battery life?

I may be over analyzing it but I want my homework totally done before I go ripping into the boat. It has great potential that I would like to achieve but am worried about a few things, like weather the boat is even wide enough to do the project. I'll get some photos up of the project over the next day or so and thank you for any feedback/help you guys can give.

 

[Zum]

Welcome to the site.
Lots of questions and I'm sure there will be more.
I give my veiw on acouple of them for you.
Weight issue....yup,you have to keep an eye on the total weight your aloud and mods will go against it.
Steel studs...you don't want to mix metals,stainless is about the only metal people use with aluminum.Stay away from pressure treated lumber as well(copper).Not sure what aluminumwrap is...lumber wrapped in aluminum?
If your going all electric theres all kinds of options.Each trolling motor will have it's own battery(maybe more).12 volt TM's=1 battery,24V=2 batteries,36V=3 batteries.A 12volt can also use more then 1 battery(parallel),to give you more time on the water.
The biggest 12V is a 55lbs thrust,after that it goes to 24V.
Look for the most amp hours on the battery,that will give you the most run time.A 55lbs thrust TM will draw around 50amps,when full throttle.If you have a battery with 150 AH's that will give you around 3 hours(less actually),on the water at wide open.If your not going full throttle the time on the water will increase alot.Seeing that your thinking electric only,you should have a seperate battery for your accessories.
Like I say theres all kinds of variations so your going to have to decide for yourself what best meets your needs.
Enjoy your stay,a boat picture would be nice.

 

[mrbillsfan311]

Well, I hope I got these pics posted up correctly. I have more pics to take tonight since I've striped the massive amount of junk I inherited with the trade of the boat and it looks totally different than these pics.

Next step, get the boat off of the trailer and power wash the bejesus out of it. I think I can remove a bunch of the paint that way. Some clown thought it was a good idea to brush paint it with some barn paint and now it's all chipping away. After that, trailer work. I have a bend to straighten out and strengthen in proper places along with making it all bunks. Since a boat will travel more miles on a trailer than water, better make it a good trailer.

I am having a debate with my cousin on removal of any of the bench seats. He says no matter what, it will ruin the boat and cause it to twist. I've done lots of research and figure if I strengthen the beams at the bends plus add side walls and fasten them to the decked floor, it won't twist. I want room to move around plus good storage and figured that's the best way. Anyway, I'll get some pics of the cleaned version up with more words before I start hacking away.

 

[mrbillsfan311]

Alright, it's been forever since I've last updated my project as I'm splitting my time between remodeling my house, my job and my boat (and I think my wife is gonna kill me if I don't get the house done!) but here's where I'm at. I've had to rebuild the trailer and that's where most of my boat time has gone and I'll get some pics up when I pull the boat off again to paint. The wiring is totally shot and I'm waiting for the light package to arrive. I had to weld on new guides & strengthen the tongue. I used 1 1/4" angle for the guides and covered the boat side with delron. I also had to put new leaf springs on since one of the old ones was broken at the shackle. I went with 2 leaf, 1000# springs on each side instead of the 4 leaf, 3000# springs that were on the trailer to help reduce the high amount of hopping that was going on & save on tire wear. Speaking of tires, I upgraded the rims & tires from 8" to 12" so I can cruise along at 70 since most of the lakes & rivers are a bit of a distance from where I live.

As for the boat, want to keep the front deck low since I will be doing some river fishing & the rivers here move fairly fast. I'm trying to keep this as light weight as possible so I'm using as much aluminum as I can. The front bracing is aluminum beams taken from a wore out RV awning, free is good. The bracing down from the beams is delron. I have a huge surplus delron after my company bought out an old meat packing facility & they were just throwing all the delron away. If it wasn't so heavy, I would use it for the deck itself & I would never have to worry about the wood rotting.

I'm turning the boat into basically a 2 seater so I'm putting the front seat right in front of the front bench seat. I'm too chicken to remove the bench seat but not afraid to cut into it, that's a great storage area but I think I'm gonna wait a bit. I have painted the inside with truck bed liner to deaden any sound & protect the gas tank area. My next step is to run the wiring but I have to finish my drywall before the next step and update.

 

[mrbillsfan311]

I think the worst part is waiting for stuff to dry. I have 2 layers of my epoxy sealer on the just top of my deck board and my list is pretty short of things to do until some of parts I ordered come in.

I did start running some power wire for the battery set up. I'm trying to keep expenses down while keeping quality up so, to connect my batteries, I picked up a couple sets of 12' long 8 gauge marine jumper cables Menards had on clearance sale for $8! Chopped the clamps off and bang, got power leads! I plan on running 2 batteries hooked up in parallel and may add a 3rd in the future. I also picked up a couple of 6'x8' slabs of outdoor carpet for $10 each so when the epoxy is done, carpet is going up. I love scouring for the deals.

So far, I have less than $350 into the project, including the boat. I traded $300 worth of labor for a Yamaha G1 golf cart 7 years ago, which I traded for the boat, trolling motor, seats, rod holders, depth finder & trailer. I spent $80 on tires & rims (father in-law is a tire dealer), $100 for the Johnson 6hp motor in good working order, $40 in paint & supplies, $60 on trailer springs, $16 on wire, $20 on carpet, wood free - had laying around in the shop, aluminum free - junked out an old RV. I know I have some expenses coming up but the way I figure it, I'll have a hell of rig for about $500. It's all about the deals!

 

[mrbillsfan311]

Time for my monthly update on the build. Things are going a bit slower than I had planed because of my home remodel and helping with the major flooding going on in my area but I'm back at. I have to get a couple more photos taken now that I have my bow & sterns lights installed and the middle floor is finished.

I still have wiring to fool around with for the depth/fish finders, a future radio and a spot light. I have decided, buget wise for home remodel, to wait on the front seat pedestal and will just use a fold out camping chair to get me by for a few weeks. I also have to weld up a bracket for the winch since I had to chop off the front 9 feet of the trailer to rebuild since it was bent like a bananna.

There is also some tinkering to do with the motor since the cam follower is wore pretty deep and it idles funny. I have an extra battery to put in so I'll 2 in the boat at all times and a bigger trolling motor is on the shopping list. The adjustable seat bracket for the rear seat should be here in a couple of days and for the most, it's about ready for the sea. Naturally, I'd like to finish some of the bells & whistles like rod holders and decals for the boat name. Stuff like that.

 

[T-MAN]

How do those interior lights work? Are they Trailer marker lights?

 

[mrbillsfan311]

How do those interior lights work? Are they Trailer marker lights?

Actually they work pretty well and yeah, they are trailer marker lights. I went LED to keep the battery draw low. I also went with the yellow to get just enough light to see but also keep the bugs down. We had blue lights on my cousin's boat that were fairly bright but seemed to attract a bunch of bugs when we were cat fishing. Bug zappers use blue lights plus the brightness. I grounded the battery to the boat so anywhere I put an electrical something, I didn't have another wire to run.

 

[Zum]

It's not good to use the boat as a ground,electrolysis may happen.
Either use your batteries neg.pole or a negative buss bar.

 

[T-MAN]

that was some good thinking with the yellow led lights and thanks for the information on it.

 

[mrbillsfan311]

that was some good thinking with the yellow led lights and thanks for the information on it.

Thanks! This forum has been a wealth of info and I'm glad I could contribute!

 

[mrbillsfan311]

It's not good to use the boat as a ground,electrolysis may happen.
Either use your batteries neg.pole or a negative buss bar.

At first I cursed you for the rain on my parade but after doing much deeper research, I must now give you lots of thanks! I hadn't realized how much trouble using the boat as ground could be! I'm not worried about any shock, it's galvanizing and corrosion that worried me. It would have been a total bummer to go through all this work and then have boat that started to melt away over something simple. Running the extra wire wasn't a whole lot of extra work and it worked out well anyway because I ended up moding a protion of the build that I didn't really like to begin with.

For the most part, I'm done and I will get some final pictures up on Friday or Saturday. It was a lot of work but man it's worth it now!

 

[mrbillsfan311]

I know I said Friday or Saturday on the pics but I thought I'd post the few I do have.