1978 fisher marine 1538 overhaul

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Joined
May 14, 2013
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Location
Gray, Georgia
First time builder here y'all. Recently bought this 1978 fisher marine 1538 with a 1978 25 hp johnson for $500. Felt like it was a steal. Boat came with a awful lookin bass boat trailer. And nearly new 40pd thrust minn Kota powerdrive tm, and a depth fonder that is suppose to work. I've had the boat about a month sorry in just gettin around to this. The boat has been sitting up for about 3 years but the guy swears the motor ran the last time he had it out. Boat is suppose to leak (not sure which route I wanna go on sealing all the rivets). I've stripped the boat as you can see in the pictures. I will mainly be using the boat for duck hunting, lake riding and river riding in the summer, and a little bit of fishing Removed 155lbs of water logged foam. Thank for following, any input will be greatly appreciated
 

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SouthernBoy, :WELCOME: to Tin Boats.

Please complete your profile when you have time.
Knowing what part of the country you hail from helps
us give you more accurate information.



to tell if you have a leak - put your boat sort of level on blocks.
(or leave on the trailer - your call) put the plug in.
fill with water - watch for leaks - circle with magic marker.

drain water - address the issues.
 
:WELCOME: aboard!
I hope you find this site as interesting and as helpful as I. Everyone on here is friendly and eager to share their knowledge.

Mr. Johnny is telling you right about how to find any leaks. 8) Whether they are around rivets, or otherwise.

Good luck with your restore/build! I'll be watching! :D

BTW: Yeppers....you got a steal alright for $500. Hope she has a title so you don't have to go through that headache.

M
Tyler, Texas
 
Definitely a steal by my view. Here in the NY/NJ metro area you couldn't get the trailer for that. Good luck with your project.
 
TexasLoneStar56 said:
:WELCOME: aboard!
I hope you find this site as interesting and as helpful as I. Everyone on here is friendly and eager to share their knowledge.

Mr. Johnny is telling you right about how to find any leaks. 8) Whether they are around rivets, or otherwise.

Good luck with your restore/build! I'll be watching! :D

BTW: Yeppers....you got a steal alright for $500. Hope she has a title so you don't have to go through that headache.

M
Tyler, Texas

I have no doubt that is the best way to find leaks! I just wanna do something do cover all the rivets as a precautionary. Anybody have any advice? I've been considering spraying the inside of the boat with bedliner type spray, or maybe covering all the rivets with jb weld, 5200, or gluvit... Any input on this y'all?

And that one good thing about georgia! Boats don't have titles :D
 
if you turn your boat over, you can apply a finger tip of 3M5200 regular cure
on each individual rivet. I say "regular cure" because it takes a couple of days to set up.
Giving it time to creep and flow under the rivet before it cures.
Fast Cure will only seal the outside edges and sets up quick, but, still will work.

Cost analysis:

do each rivet, one by one . . . you still get each and every rivet sealed. $15.00
do the whole hull bottom, $150.00 for many tubes of 5200. (not that anyone suggests it).
Just do your research as to the Gluvit, Steel Flex, etc and see what will
work best for you. On the World Wide Inner Web, you can compare the pros and cons
from reading the labels on the products.
Personally, I do the one by one approach with the regular cure 5200 with zero issues.
The P/O of my bass boat applied Steel Flex to the bottom hull and over a dozen rivets have
developed leaks. So with this one negative experience, I am not a fan of Steel Flex.
Turning it over is not an option. I filled it with water to the water line.
Marked each rived and seam that was leaking - after it had dried, applied the regular cure 5200
with zero issues. This was a year ago.

jus my Dos Centavos

There are MANY thoughts on the bed liner - ALL NEGATIVE
 
If that 25 hp johnson works out for you, it is a heck of a deal. Never heard of any spray all over stuff that works to seal a leaky boat, especially bedliner. 5200 worked on some spots on my boat but hey were not loose rivets, they were the bottom strakes got pulled away from the hull a little bit. Filled it up with 5200, so far so good, about 2 years. I have an old fisher too plus an old johnson, both work good, "last time I had it out" as the saying goes.

Tim
 
Welcome to the forum. You've got the same boat as mine, except mine is a year older (77 model). I completely gutted mine, removed the console, and built raised floors front and back. It will be interesting to see what you do with yours. BTW I traded a deer rifle for mine. :mrgreen:
 
Sorry y'all I have been a little busy lately. I had time to spend the day on it yesterday. I cleaned the carb, blew out the fuel lines, bought some new spark plugs and fired it on up. Ran it for about 10 seconds and of course it ran rough. I had to order a new ignition switch because even after the motor was running my starter kept spinning. I flipped the boat over, and found the leak the previous owner Said it had very easily. Looks like he hit a sharp stump hard because there was a couple 1/4 inch gashes in the boat along with a larger dented area. I patch over the whole area with jb weld and put jb wel around some of the rivets that obviously needed some attention, then started priming. Things are finally starting to look up for it!
 

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Welcome - I am going to move your post to conversions and modification sections you got allot of fun ahead of you and keep those pics coming we love them.
 

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