My first boat build Alumacraft 1457

I will start this off by saying WOW! you guys do some amazing things with these boats. After stumbling across this website I really wanted a jon boat to start modding. I looked around for a while but no luck finding anything with my budget, then I happen to be talking to my neighbor, who has a 21 Ft center console bay boat. I happen to glance in his backyard and behold a jon boat so I asked him about it and after some talking we agree on a price. A whole whopping 200 dollars, which really became 120 after I had to buy new wheels for the trailer. The plans are to add some decking and a floor to make it a little bit more comfortable to fish from.

You got a deal right there. What's the plan?

The plan is to build a front deck with a couple storage areas, a small rear deck, and a floor.Probably paint the boat to and definitely going to fix up the trailer. Sticking with the johnson 9.9 for now, it came with a trolling motor but it was an older one and i have no clue if it works or not. I think it is was a bigfoot 38. Then start tearing the fish up!

Wow you got a deal there. Do you know if the motor runs? I've got an old Evinrude trolling motor that works fine. So yours might work too.

Not sure if the motor runs or not, my neighbor said it ran last time he used it which was a year ago but I just brought the boat home today, which consisted of my brother in law and I just pulling the trailer by hand. My neighbor is pretty cool and said he would give a hand to get it running if it's not.

Yeah those Jonnyrude's are pretty hard to kill..lf it doesn't run it probably won't take much to fix it.

Great deal!

I don't know what year the motor is but what should I be concerned with about it? What should I go ahead and change out? What usually needs to be done to these motors to get them up and running?

The common things are usually the impeller, and a carb cleaning...sometimes folks need to replace the whole water pump assembly or the fuel pump...plus change out the lower unit oil and check your compression.

Mine hadn't been run in a few years and all I had to do was change the oil...I checked the impeller but it was still in great shape so I didn't replace it...tested it in a large bucket and it fired up with just a couple pulls.

That's a sweet find and DEAL!! way to go. Just goes to show never hurts to ask.

Nice find on the boat!!! That's going to be a great little rig there once you get her cleaned up. Take a look at my build thread I think you'll like my trailer's paint job...lol Go Gators!!!

Tim I'm definitely a fan of the colors but I don't think I am going to do mine the same, I am thinking more of a navy blue. Got the boat clean today and stripped everything out so I can start fresh. I won't be able to get anything done this weekend due to I'm in the National Guard and it's drill weekend. I will try to post pictures tomorrow or my progress on Monday.

I honestly wouldn't have painted mine like that but the paint was free and my wife came up with the idea of the Gator theme. I just picked up a can of orange spray paint for the fenders. Looking forward to the pic updates.

As promised here is some new photos and there will be more tomorrow...I forgot to take pictures tonight of my work. I have mostly been focusing on the trailer trying to get it road worthy. I started to sand the trailer by hand and didn't make it very far so I said screw this and got an angle grinder... That made quick work of the rust.I started to paint the trailer to but ran out of paint so there will be pics of that tomorrow when I finish. I stripped the boat down but haven't done much since I'm still trying to decide on the layout.

i thought i got a good deal on mine great find. how wide is it 48?

So no progress as of right now due to rain. Instead I'm debating whether I want to build the front deck all the way back to the middle seat or to the second or third rib back. Any ideas or suggestions? I only plan on extending the rear deck a couple of inches to the first rib. Open to ideas.

Joseph the deck is 36 inches wide while the gunwale is 57 inches wide.

Got a little update, been bustin my tail on the trailer trying to get it fixed up and I have started on the rear deck on the boat. I made a cutout for the gas tank under the rear seat and have started framing the deck....forgot to take pics of that but will get them tomorrow. I think I may have figured out how I want to layout the front deck too. So a couple trailer pics. Still need to redo the the bunks, lights, and I think I may try the ladder stabilizer idea for new bunk guides. Any thoughts on the ladder stabilizer idea?

another thing to check on the motor is make sure your tiller arm is tight.....i just one and the arm wasn't tight which i believe it cause the gears in the arm/throttle linkage to start stripping out......i had to buy a new/used arm. i should have it in a few days.....i was also told to make sure the arm is all the way in the down position when in use cause it will cause the gears to become seperated and out of sinc.......looks like you got one heck of a deal! enjoy and keep the pictures coming!

I already don't like your build....because you're a Florida fan. GO DAWGS! Hahaha no I like the boat man, it will look good when it's all ready to go! But seriously....Gators....come on.

No work on the boat due to rain and my son's 1st birthday today. I did get a little fishing in over the weekend at a local pond with my brother. Our smallest catch was a 1lb bass, we got 8 in total here is a few pics of our catch.

Here is me with a nice 4 lb


Here is one of my brother's catch also another 4 lber