sears 1436 game fisher jon boat

hello, new guy here ive got a 1436 sears gamefisher not sure of the year. ill get the id # and some pics today ,its a little beat up but i think i got a good deal. would like to put some casting platforms in it. rivets need tightened it sat for a long time ,i filled it with water 46 slow leaks around rivets ya 46. also has a small 2 inch crack on bottom, and the top of the transom has a tear in it, very light boat would like to fix it up

sounds like a good project, try and get some pics up if you can. you can search all the info you need here about fixing those leaks. welcome

ive been reading this forum for about a week this site is incredible, very informative. i have many problems with my boat,i want to do it right . i started playing around with some stripping methods, sanding disks, wire brushes,seems to work ok. do i need to get all the paint off ? or just most of it ? alot of the rivets leak slow , going to try and tighten them, should i weld them solid? planning on using steelflex for bottom and half the sides. i see there are a lot of low temp aluminum welding rods should i do that then steelflex ? also have crack in bottom looking for best fix? trying to put some pics on here im having trouble, says file is to big, max is 150 kib ? i know less about computers than i do boats.

You don't need to sand all the paint off.. Scuff it up really good and use a self etching primer and you'll be fine. If you are going to use steel flex, then you'll have no problems.

As far as your leaky rivets - that's normal and not that big of a problem. get someone to help you - Get a small sledge hammer and place on one side of the rivet, then the other person tap the other side of the rivet with a regular hammer. Don't hammer it home, taps will do fine to tighten them up. If you use steel flex that's just another added barrier that will solve your problem.
You can weld the rivets as well, but I would still buck them first. But weld, then put the steel flex on if you go that route.

I'm not sure what kind of crack you have, but you can use an aluminum epoxy to fix it. It's almost like that putty Billy Mayes does infomericals on... or you can weld that as well.

as far as your pictures - if you use photobucket it will resize them automatically to the format that you can use for this site.

here are some pics of my 1436

i finally got my boat sanded down prob. 80 %, going to tighten the rivets tomorrow i was wondering if its worth welding the rivets before steelflex? or just do the steelflex,the more i reed on here that stuff sounds like it really works. also wondering the best way to fix a crack in bottom of the boat? in the above pic 1 1/2 inches long

Im kind of confused as to why you would weld the rivets if you have bucked them. from what I have heard any welding on the rivet will make things move around due to the heat causing it to leak again.

I say buck the rivets and then steelflex and be done.