handyandy
Well-known member
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.
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.