MMF'S-1990 Tracker TX-17 Alum Build (FINAL PIX 10/22/11)

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mmf

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Kings Mountain NC
Did a little boat trading and got this a couple of weeks ago. I am skipping over the tear-out portion of the mod due to boredom, the boat wood was completely rotten (worm bedding) and pretty easy to get out except for the cheap STEEL screws tracker used to hold the wood down in their construction. Note: NEVER use STEEL anything in an aluminum hull! Don't go the cheap route, bite the bullet and go buy stainless or ALUMINUM on EVERYTHING! Had to drill off to the side of the self drilling hardened screws on many of them and knock them out. Here is a picture of the hull......
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Some more: unlike many others that did some mods, I am not blessed with an indoor working arena so mine is outside in the elements, one of the main reasons I am going back with ALL ALUMINUM in this boat, it will be kept outside and I do not want ANY materials to deteriate over the course of several years ( I have been there many times!). I have removed the front storage areas in front of the console in order to gain a little more floor space and still retain a good amount of front deck space. The rear of these boats is a mess in my book, especially the poured in urethane flotation (open cell!) that is good for one thing only, to act as a SPONGE! Tracker made NO effort to keep the poured-in flotation from reaching the hull drainage valleys and thus, most of mine are completely stopped up with this crap and the bottom layer of cut flotation layed in is SOAKING wet, holding water FOREVER! All of this must go! I am slowly taking the rear apart and removing the flotation. On the positive side, the transom was completely encased with aluminum, and upon inspection and a core drill sample, it is still in good shape, at least they did seal it good! I am going to use 3/16" diamond plate aluminum on front deck, floor and the rear deck. I am not a tournament bass fisherman and I do not use a live well. No stressed out, par-boiled fish for me, I eat my fish so I they go straight from the water to the ice chest! I mainly fish for striper, big catfish and crappie and I have a bait tank I use for my bait. The live well will go out and this area will be used for a large storage area when finished.
As a note to others who are doing modifications, a cheap replacement for the open cell flotation in the hull is the el-cheapo swimming noodle used by kids in the pool. You can buy a whole case of them at the dollar store for about $25 and they are CLOSED CELL and will never soak up water. You can cut them as needed and even split them down the middle for floor floatation without stopping up all the drainage valleys in the hull bottom too!. more pics.........

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I will also be making a bench seat that flips up on hinges instead of the two seat original version withe the live well banging against your elbows too. I have a scrap metal business not far from here that sells the 3/16" diamond plate for $170 new for a 4 X 8 sheet, a little steep for me since I pinch pennies as much as I can but they have much "scrap" (cut pieces) that they sell for $1.25 a pound. The pieces you see in the picture cost me $109 and I still have the back deck to do but considering the price of marine plywood then sealing it, the trade-off is about equal except that the aluminum will be there long after any kind of wood. Also note, tracker failed to drill holes on the very center section on the hull bottom valleys and you must drill these out to have proper drainage..........................
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I will be cleaning the hull after the interior mod and this is a picture of the results using the cleaner they sell at NAPA called "Aluminum Brighten". $10 for quart squirt bottle or $30 a gallon. It work great! You MUST follow the instructions though because it has acid in it and you need to really wash it off good when complete. This will save much knuckle work for me!
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Can't make up my mind but considering a center console modification, the original side console would be quicker and I would be fishin' faster but I just don't know. I am going to have to buy a new steering cable anyway so I could scratch that off the expense of it. I also have a set of binnacle OMC control box too. Hmmmmmm........................
 
frosty the snowman got his *** kicked here today and allowed me to do some more tearout at the rear of the boat. I have a MAJOR setback however, I was too quick to judge my core drilling from the top of the transom! I removed a screw during tearout that had a wiring hanger and was screwed into the lower transom inside, when I removed it, half of was rusted out, "Huh-Oh" I thought "water" and I was right. Grabbed a 1/2" drill bit and drilled through the aluminum decorative cover on the inside of the transom and wood rot! Bummer, now I must do the dreaded, cut the weld joints with a cutoff tool so I can get the transom wood out. I will get over the difficulty of this job as I have faced this many times before, just never had to cut aluminum to get the old wood out. I will post some pics of my transom replacement when I get to it. I work crazy 12 hour shifts and have NO time to do anything when I am working (besides being an OLD man!)
I drilled out all the rivets in the battery/fuel compartment floor in order to remove all of the SOAKING wet open cell floatation today that Tracker used, this is BAD stuff!. Do yourself a favor, if you do a boat like this, do NOT shortcut your rebuild by not removing all of the old floatation, it will hold water forever like a sponge and then MILDEW, the main contributor to WOOD ROT! Go back with CLOSED cell floatation! I like to use pool noodles, closed cell, support a ton, and CHEAP. Back to the work place tomorrow then more progress over the weekend (I hope)!
 
Finally got to do some work out in the rain though, finished tearout of floor at battery/fuel compartment so I could remove the soaking wet floor insulation and cut the bottom 2 inches of the poured insulation out. I have decided to remove all the poured floatation material and refill the area with noodles I spoke of earlier.

Removal of splash well area and top transom cap is complete and it was a pain for me because I did not have a small right angle grinder, I borrowed a cut-off tool from work but it was VERY weak and took practically all day to cut through the welds and top transom cap, I blame alot of my slow progress on my air compressor whick could not keep up with the air demand. I am GLAD I took out the wood, I found that the transom wood was half rotten even though it seemed OK pounding on the transom with my hand before removal. HEADS-UP on all you Tracker modders!
Here is the link to my findings rather than post all of the pictures here................
https://picasaweb.google.com/114764926961602492668/TrackerTX17RottenTransom?feat=directlink
PS......note on some of the pics that I have drilled pilot holes through the center of the bottom floor supports for drainage, I will be enlarging these holes before the area is resealed so the boat will have proper drainage!
 
I made a special trip to harbor freight to get one of those right angle grinders just for cutting off my Tracker's transom cap as well. It wouldn't work for me either, my air compressor was too small. I ended up using the electric 4-1/2" angle grinder, and it took about 5 min to cut it off. I didn't want to use it at first, because it was so fast and I had so little control...I did end up going too deep in a few spots.
 
BYOB Fishing said:
I made a special trip to harbor freight to get one of those right angle grinders just for cutting off my Tracker's transom cap as well. It wouldn't work for me either, my air compressor was too small. I ended up using the electric 4-1/2" angle grinder, and it took about 5 min to cut it off. I didn't want to use it at first, because it was so fast and I had so little control...I did end up going too deep in a few spots.

I was very glad you posted your transom replacement, I kinda used it as a guide, THANKS, and it was a pain but necessary. With the small width wheel I had on the cutoff tool I was using it was kinda hard to find where the two pieces of metal met at the weld joint and would have been easier with the wider electric right angle wheel like you used, but like you said, I imagine it was harder to hold and control. I am thinking about maybe putting the top plate back on mechanically (using SS bolts and and nuts) instead of having it welded back. I know I can make some splice plates out of aluminum for the sides but I would have to use some angle aluminum at the rear joint shaped to fit but do-able I think. Thoughts?
 
Do you think just bolting will take some structural support out of the top plate? I thought of bolting it too but was worried about support under load.
 
BYOB Fishing said:
Do you think just bolting will take some structural support out of the top plate? I thought of bolting it too but was worried about support under load.

I don't think it will with the proper amount of bolts and size, my gunnel is a little different than yours too, mine is a rectangular piece of aluminum and your was rounded I belive, but mine would make bolting easy. I will give it good thought before I make my decision. I will post pix of progress as it goes although SLOW due to my work schedule and weather permitting in my outdoor arena!
PS...and my small wallet size!
 
A note about pool noodles:

They are closed cell, but definitely will soak up water. I have an Aire Lynx II kayak which uses a stiffer version of the pool noodle material as the floor inserts. The kayak is a 'self bailing' model which means the floor is always in the water.

After a single day of use, and after disassembling the 'yak, the foam floor inserts are twice as heavy as before and must be beaten on the ground, whacked against a tree or...whatever. It takes a couple of days out in the sun to totally dry them out.
 
I have used the pool noodles on about 10 aluminum boat restorations so far and have yet to find one that soaks up water in my usage. I am not going to say there is an exception to the rule from different manufacturers, or similar types but I have not had your experience yet.

I have seen a couple of guys on the forum use "insulation boards" from a building supplier like Lowe's or Home Depot, but realize these insulation boards, although they will float, are not made for the sole purpose of floatation or exposure to continous water intrusion so they may support the growth of fungus/mildew too, a bad deal for any boat that has any wood in it's construction. Mildew will spread like wildfire in damp places, especially in the bildge area of the boat.
 
mmf said:
I have a leftover motor from my previous project if any one is needing one, it is a Mercury 40 HP tiller with a SHORT shaft in GREAT shape. Newly rebuilt powerhead, electric start, PM me if you have any interest in this

Too bad that 70hp isn't for sale! hahaha I'd like to have something that big on mine!
 
mmf said:
I have used the pool noodles on about 10 aluminum boat restorations so far and have yet to find one that soaks up water in my usage. I am not going to say there is an exception to the rule from different manufacturers, or similar types but I have not had your experience yet.

I have seen a couple of guys on the forum use "insulation boards" from a building supplier like Lowe's or Home Depot, but realize these insulation boards, although they will float, are not made for the sole purpose of floatation or exposure to continous water intrusion so they may support the growth of fungus/mildew too, a bad deal for any boat that has any wood in it's construction. Mildew will spread like wildfire in damp places, especially in the bildge area of the boat.


I agree. That Kayak must have had different foam. I've seen pool noodles left in the water for days, and not absorb water.
 
How are the pool noodles going to support the rear deck? In my tracker the foam is also used to support the all-aluminum rear deck. Do you have to build some sort of structure?
 
BYOB Fishing said:
How are the pool noodles going to support the rear deck? In my tracker the foam is also used to support the all-aluminum rear deck. Do you have to build some sort of structure?


That's something that I'd like to see addressed too. I know that some companies advertise that they use the foam for structural support. I even built large fiberglass boats and we claimed the same.
I don't want to give up the structural support it adds, but I REALLY don't want that junk. Absorbs water and blocks drains.
 

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