finally got my pods on

TinBoats.net

Help Support TinBoats.net:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

handyandy

Well-known member
Joined
Jun 2, 2015
Messages
593
Reaction score
2
Location
Bedford Indiana
This has been a long time in the making, I had these pods made for me a while back. I made cardboard templates that I should have done a better job on, I dropped the templates off with Jason owner of uncle j boats in Louisiana last summer when I made a trip down there. Buddy of mine picked up the finished products for me when he went down there on a family vacation. Anyways yes it took me this long to get around to finally mounting them as this last year has been busy moved homes both my fiancé at the time and I bought a house together moved into it together and sold our previous homes. Built a garage onto the new to me home, did a bunch of other work on it. Have a full time job, and in the Army Reserves the Army always seems to have me gone more than I'd like eliminating a lot of weekends I'd normally have for fishing/hunting/working on projects. Also got married so it's this last year has been busy to say the least.

Anyways due my not so great templates the pods when put on the transom flush angled up much more than necessary. So I ended up cutting scrap pieces of 1/4" thick aluminum to make filler pieces to angle them down more. The pods were made from 3/16" aluminum I can't fault J's work at all the angle issue falls on my me and my templates he made them from. Pods themselves are really well made and were a darn good price. I welded them on with the bottom edge almost inline with the bottom of the boat did them maybe a 1/4" above the bottom of the boat. The back of the pods sit about 1 1/4" higher than the front. I did this to ensure when on plane they wouldn't cause excess drag and slow me down. I also angled them that much so I can manage to trim the bow up at lower speeds for rough water.

Installing the pods took some time I first had to get the original paint off the back of the transom which was a pain. My boat is an older excel hull they painted it with some kind of truck bud liner kind of coating. That crap does not like to come off. I had to use a combination heavy wire wheel, and flap disc on my grinder to remove it.

Once I got the paint removed and down to bare clean aluminum I positioned my pods in place and at the angle I wanted using jack stands along with some scrap wood shims. Once I got them positioned how I liked at the angle I thought would work I tacked them on. I doubled checked that the mounting location and angle looked right then fully welded the bottom seam, and up the sides as far as I could before the gap became too great to weld. I still have my little hobart 190 welder with a spool gun which I have been very pleased with. I've had it around two years now I think it's been great and it's what I used to do most the welding on this project. I'm still getting the hang of welding aluminum with the spool gun. I'm more experienced with tig welding aluminum as I've had my tig welder longer. So some of the welds aren't the prettiest but they've been holding up just fine.
 

Attachments

  • IMG_0424.JPG
    IMG_0424.JPG
    76.1 KB · Views: 3,511
  • IMG_0426.JPG
    IMG_0426.JPG
    77.3 KB · Views: 3,511
  • IMG_0427.JPG
    IMG_0427.JPG
    56.9 KB · Views: 3,511
sorry the one pic is flipped thought I had it right.

anyways continuing:

Since I didn't do my templates quiet right and had to angle my pods down more rather than just welding them on flush with the transom I had a gap on the sides and top to fill. I cut some pieces of 1/4" aluminum plate for my filler pieces, I would have rather used some 3/16" as it wouldn't have taken as much heat to weld it, but the 1/4" was some free scrap I had lying around.

To cut the aluminum I primarily used my plasma cutter this past spring that was my big tool purchase for the year a hypertherm 45xp plasma cutter. It was expensive, and I compared plasma cutters for a couple of months before settling on the hypertherm. I considered hobart, miller, lincoln, and some others. I ultimately decided on the hypertherm despite it being the most expensive I was considering. A good friend of mine who works for chief automotive a metal welding/cutting company of Rotary Lifts. He works in there tech support for their welders/plasma cutters and he told me to go with the hypertherm. Pretty well said that despite his company selling other cutters, hypertherm makes the best ones. So far I'm very pleased with it, it's one of those tools I wish I had gotten long ago. I went with the 45xp model despite the 30 being cheaper as it could be used on a cnc plasma table, maybe some day I might have one. If not it's still a great machine on it's own.

Once I cut the filler pieces I started to tack them in then fully welded them in. I got the right side pod on fully first then did the left side. After I got both welded in fully with the mig I went back over some spots with the tig that I didn't the best of job on with the mig. Once I got the pods on I welded on a bracket L bracket for mounting my transducer so I wouldn't have to drill through the hull to mount it. Also put on a piece of angle aluminum to finally be able to bolt a spray plate as well. I also welded on some pipes on the back to be able to use some fiberglass spud poles for shallow water anchoring. So far I like having these a lot as well.
 

Attachments

  • IMG_0432.JPG
    IMG_0432.JPG
    82.5 KB · Views: 3,479
  • IMG_0438.JPG
    IMG_0438.JPG
    48.6 KB · Views: 3,479
  • IMG_0431.JPG
    IMG_0431.JPG
    75.7 KB · Views: 3,479
  • IMG_0429.JPG
    IMG_0429.JPG
    76.6 KB · Views: 3,479
more pics of pods welded on fully before paint with the spud pole mounts the transducer bracket and spray plate mount
 

Attachments

  • IMG_0462.JPG
    IMG_0462.JPG
    35.7 KB · Views: 3,478
  • IMG_0463.JPG
    IMG_0463.JPG
    44.1 KB · Views: 3,478
  • IMG_0461.JPG
    IMG_0461.JPG
    37.6 KB · Views: 3,478
  • IMG_0467.JPG
    IMG_0467.JPG
    41.2 KB · Views: 3,478
continuing with the build paint prep/paint time:

After all the metal work was done I used a SS wire wheel on my grinder to clean up all the bare aluminum to prep it for paint. Since I was going to be at it painting the back of the boat I went ahead and painted my motor to match at the same time. Some on here will probably cringe that I painted the motor the same ugly flat green the boat is, but I don't care. It's an old ugly duck boat that needs an ugly green motor to match. I mostly painted the motor as the original paint on the hood was flaking off in big chunks badly it looked like crap anyways.

To strip the hood and engine of the remaining decals I used an astro tools pinstripe removing eraser tool. It was pretty cheap and worked great if you ever have old decals, stickers, pin stripes, or anything like that you want to remover from a painted surface with minimal damage to the paint it works. I have used them before to get rid of decals and stickers on cars. I used the alumahawk paint so far I'm pleased with it, it was really thick, but the old ten dollar harbor freight cheapy spray gun layed it on decently. The hardest part about painting the motor was just getting it cleaned and scuffed up. I used a DA sander on the hood to remove all the old flaking paint. The rest of the engine I mostly used coarse scotch bright pads to scuff it and get in all the nooks and cranny's.

I just followed the alumahawk directions for prep the aluminum was scuffed well from the wire wheel, had the motor/hood suffed well, then washed it all down with soap/water, blew it dry then wiped down with acetone, and then a tack cloth. The paint shot on just fine and so far is holding up well. I think the boat overall all looks better with the motor somewhat matching now.
 

Attachments

  • IMG_0472.JPG
    IMG_0472.JPG
    54.2 KB · Views: 3,476
  • IMG_0471.JPG
    IMG_0471.JPG
    49.8 KB · Views: 3,476
  • IMG_0469.JPG
    IMG_0469.JPG
    34.1 KB · Views: 3,476
  • IMG_0470.JPG
    IMG_0470.JPG
    31.7 KB · Views: 3,476
more pics of the paint this is when it was still wet just sprayed.
 

Attachments

  • IMG_0475.JPG
    IMG_0475.JPG
    53.7 KB · Views: 3,474
  • IMG_0476.JPG
    IMG_0476.JPG
    57.9 KB · Views: 3,474
  • IMG_0478.JPG
    IMG_0478.JPG
    47.3 KB · Views: 3,474
  • IMG_0477.JPG
    IMG_0477.JPG
    39.3 KB · Views: 3,474
Finished product few pics from this past weekend
 

Attachments

  • IMG_0490.JPG
    IMG_0490.JPG
    89.7 KB · Views: 3,473
  • IMG_0485.JPG
    IMG_0485.JPG
    70.9 KB · Views: 3,473
  • IMG_0484.JPG
    IMG_0484.JPG
    78.6 KB · Views: 3,473
Riverdog said:
Where did you get that transom saver for a jet foot?

I made the transom saver started as a normal one I just took the plastic pads off and bolted on a piece of angled metal that allowed the foot to sit on flat. It was some cheap red neck engineering I can take closer pics of it if you'd like.

Thought I kind of summed up the performance gains already. I haven't noticed a drop in top speed at all the way I mounted them angling up so they don't drag while on plane. Where they have really helped is my static draft has been reduced by a few inches, and getting on plane with a heavy load is much quicker now. My boat is a heavy 1554 older boat made by excel the bottom is far from perfect it has hit it's fair share of rocks, loggs, and been run aground more times than I care to admit. They seem have helped reduced chine walking in sharp fast turns for me. The boat will still chine walk if I try to turn at too high of a speed, but they seem to have helped reduced it. They also help it stay on plane at a slightly lower speed, I can stay on plane maybe another 1-2mph slower which doesn't seem like much but it can help it tight areas where I want to be on plane but have to avoid lots of obstacles. So far I'm quiet pleased with them.
 

Latest posts

Top