Novaman's 1648 Tracker Grizzly

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novaman

Well-known member
Joined
Jul 24, 2011
Messages
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Location
Saint Joe , IN.
Over the last 6-7 mos. I've followed a lot of You with projects that have amazed me by the sheer diversity of styles and abilities to execute Your plans. Hopefully this boat won't be too boring. I have looked for a 1648 Grizzly of the older style for awhile, (don't like the newer rear seat layout) and finely found one in WI. To be exact, Tomahawk, WI>, way up north, as in due west of the UP of MI. The PO is a 75 yr old duck hunter and fisherman, who decided to downsize due to losing his hunting partner. The boat was very clean and "rash" free,had a drop in " duck liner", and a trailer I thought was new upon seeing it. Seems as though this trailer sat on the corner of the garage for approx. 355 days a yr. He lives on the Wisconsin River and and the launch ramp is only 1/2 mi. from the house. So I put about 4x the mileage bringing it home as it had in its 7 yr. life. The boat will be used for walleye, steelhead , and panfishing, so no plans for any deck adds, and NO wood in side the hull. I'll use alum. for most stuff and stainless fasteners. My son works for a coatings co., so the interior may get a new product as a test case for a non skid coating. I had actually bought a 2004 mercury 25hp 4 stroke before the boat, since it was a great price and I knew it was what I wanted on the hull whenever I found one. Now for some pics!
 

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Looking forward to seeing how your project goes. I' m sure it will be a really good one.
 
Thanks Gillhunter, I'll be happy if it looks anywhere as nice as yours.

Since raising the transom involved taking the corner caps off, I decided to make the new one about 3x the size of the originals. I cut and broke .090 alum. sheet to a size that would work for anything I wanted to install on them, cleats, rod holder mounts, nav. light, and enough room for a downrigger. Before they were welded on a channel was cut along the outside of both foam pods to fit wiring and hoses for livewell and bilge. That involved notching the channel across the foam to allow corners to be made, and a cutter wheel on an angle grinder and pliers did just what I needed. I'll make my own livewell to fit on the port side about half way between the existing decks.
 

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Thanks guys! Next on the agenda is getting the transom ready to paint, but first it needs to have any edges ground smooth, and same with the corner caps. On to the wiring before anything else. I fed 4 sets of wires thru a 3/4" plastic water line, the kind you'd bury for new construction ( since I had 25' left from 10 yrs ago). I'd probably try something softer next time, since I had to use a heat gun on this stuff then walk on it to make it "oval" enough to push behind the ribs, all in 1 pc,from bow deck to stern pod. That tubes tough enough I'll never have to worry about something ever cutting through it by accident. Pulled 3 sets of 16AWG wire for the bow light , flood lights, and a spare and one set of 14AWG to the bow to use for for a power anchor winch. The TM wiring will be a short run to the front cubby for that battery. I got a great price on a couple of Minnkota 60amp breakers (posted a link in the Electrical thread ) at $30 ea. incl shipping off from Ebay. I hope to get some more pics posted on Sun. of the electrical box and switches and a few other things I just got done with, but for now it's time for Nascar @ Texas. Good nite all! :arrow: :popcorn: :beer:
 

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I'm jumping around a little since I'm waiting on a couple of pcs to get here. Today I took the boat over to my friend with the aluminum welding equipment and got the floor stringers installed. I used al.angle that is 2 x 2 x 1/4" for the floor to be mounted over. Ya i know that's pretty beefy stuff, but so are the guys who'll fish out of this boat. At 5'11" and 240#, I'm the light weight as both of my boys are taller and beefier than I. So I chose to do overkill on the floor rather than have as much flex as the floor in our Alumacraft 2072 w/ factory floor has. I'll cover the ribs with 1/8" 5052 sheet. A 60 x 120 sheet will make a 1 pc floor possible with out a lot of drop off. We have plenty of cardboard that comes on the pallets with sheet stock, which I'll use for a pattern. Hopefully it will be in fri. since our regular supplier only carries 48 x 120 sheet in stock. in the meantime I got the TM bracket welded up too, and went ahead and painted it and installed the TM. I went with a 45# Powerdrive V2 by Minnkota, because it's proven to me to be a good unit. The big boat has a 55# unit and it's been on there for 4yrs. now with no Problems, and I love the ability to put the pedal in the back and just move around a spot trolling or move down a shoreline and cast weed edges for walleye without having to move rods etc. to the front deck. I'll also put a power anchor up frt after I decide how I'm going to make this one. I'd love to have a "River Larry's anchor tower and winch, but $1k is just out of the pic. But since I'll use a 30# lead pyramid anchor on this boat, I ain't gonna pull it up manually, as often as I sometimes move around .You have to be able to short line anchor in a lot of the places I fish for steelhead or walleye, such as below dams and behind bridge abutments. For now here's some pics. Ya I know =D> =D> it's about time.
 

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Lookin good! Your wiring is so clean. I hope I can get mine to look that organized.

I love the front of your boat! I wish mine was like that. I'm jealous :lol:
 
Hey man, where did you pick up the black protective edge guard you put around the hole you cut in the rear floor? I could use some for my rear bench seat, now rear storage compartment!
 
Thank You Guys very much, I'm trying to do a boat I'm not afraid to get dirty, and have top keep reigning myself in. I built a 67 Nova once , that was supposed to be for driving , but got carried away with the detailing and ended up with a car that won it's class at the Deartborn Nova Nats.I guess that's why I try to make things clean and neat and don't even think about how far I go with stuff. The wiring is a good example, I just couldn't let bare wires hang all over. I appreciate the votes of confidence.

As far as the edge guard, it was on the front deck opening and I cut it up to use in other places. Cabelas has a product for alum boats thats the same. Also You can find it on Ebay;
https://www.ebay.com/itm/STANDARD-3-16-INCH-BLACK-FLEX-VINYL-PEBBLE-BOAT-TRIM-LOCK-MOLDING-10-FT-521200-/190631307972?pt=Boat_Parts_Accessories_Gear&vxp=mtr&hash=item2c6282eac4

Hope that helps ,and Thanks again for the for the compliments. I'll try to keep You coming back to see the rest.
 
A few more things are done. Wiring is complete for everything that's installed, still need front flood or fog lights for those early morning or late nite runs on the river. After reading some comments about lights in the electrical threads, I talked to the local CO and he wasn't concerned about running flood lights on the river at nite as long as I had nav. lights on too. I explained about not wanting to run over limbs or other junk floating in the river as well as being able to see guys who don't use their nav lights for whatever reason. His main concern was that everybody got back to the launch safe.

The floor stringers are done , now I need to make a template for the floor, so I've got a 4' x 10' sheet of cardboard to cut on. The livewells getting the finishing touchs and will be the subject of the next bunch of pics, as soon as I go pick it up. The livewell drain is run thru the stringers and connected to a fitting thru the stern.
 

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Finally went after my livewell, and I'm quite happy with the way it turned out. I didn't take time to figure the volume, but full of water to the overflow, it weighs about 55#. I used plumbing on the inside that I scavenged from an old boat that I scrapped. Mostly it's a Bassperator with a few changes. Has anyone tried a homemade siphon injection type of aeroation system? It's supposed to increase the amount of diffused oxygen in the water dramatically.

I got the time to wire the trolling motor to the Minnkota circuit breaker , and was very disappointed that the ring terminals on the motor wiring wouldn't even fit the circuit breaker posts. :evil: Ever wonder why a $10 nav light receptacle has tinned wire but not a $450 trolling motor?? :roll: .

Got my cardboard template made for the floor, and hope time allows to cut and install this weekend.
 

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It's been awhile, and I'm back at it, after all it's about time to go fishing by myself, and this is my ride. The bow storage needed a major repair job, to the opening bulkhead, it had about a 5/8" arc in it because of the way it was assembled.
 

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Novaman, what are you using for deck surface? I was debating grizzly gripping mine but I have to order 3 gallons of it to have it color matched, I have decided there colors just wont suit my boat.
 
Thanks Overboard, someone thinking You did good, is like a mini lottery win everytime it happens. Thanks for the rush 8)

Bugpac, I wish i could give You a name, but as of yet I don't believe it's got a trade name . #-o My son works for a coatings co., Finish Works , and this stuff is still being tested at this time. I think they're making sure it's gonna be **** good before they sell it. I f I had a name , I'd gladly pass it on, so that people on here could use it. In fact I'm still waiting for My son to blend a small batch to try to match the Grizzly color, Which is the same as their " Dead Grass Green" spray paint, a color they make for an OEM boat co.
 

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I finally got a set of batteries to last long enough to catch up to present, ( Oh Ya , DO NOT pay any attention to the date on the camera, it's screwed up and i'm not gonna mess with it since it still takes pics.) I need to get a new one , buit first things first, and besides if it dies I'll bother my wifes.

The livewell is finished and installed, and I'm quite happy with the results after testing it, for anything i could think of happening, OR not happening as it should. NO leaks, it drains and recirculates, and refills like it should. I've added a couple of little things to it, that You'll see
 

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Something I forgot to show before is the drain I installed in the bow section, where Tracker apparently thought the expanding foam would stop at "just the right place" to allow water to escape from the front deck pockets on top of the foam yet under the floor. :roll: I used a 1/4' mild steel rod and bent a small hook on the end to bore thru the foam, by running it along the keel strip, to the very front of the hull where it didn't fill with foam. The seams where deck and floor meet were all capable of allowing water to collect in there. I found that out when I towed it 485 mi. home in the rain, then bored a hole for the front nav. light socket. Lookie what I found, about 1-1/2 gal. of Tri-state water. The solution is a pc of 1/2" plastic drain line forced in the hole I bored in the foam. To keep from hurting the end of the tube while driving it in with a plastic shot filled mallet, I put the end inside of a 5/8" deepwell socket and used a 24" extension to pound on. I drove it all the way to that pocket under the deck, and stopped about 1/2" short of coming clear out of the foam, to act as a funnel to the tube. Problem solved. :?:

Something I did at an earlier stage in the build was to open up the access holes Tracker put in the bow. They were so small my wife couldn't even reach in to help me with the TM mount. I cut covers from.090 al.sheet, drilled the mounting holes, used self etching primer as always then painted the covers.

Now for the floor , It's 1/8" 5052 al. sheet, to accomodate at least 2 guys weight, one of whom is pushing 300#, without a lot of flexing. Originally I was going to cut it from a 5' x 10' pc., but fate came my way, when we got in a badly scratched and gouged sheet from a supplier ( who said keep it and they'd make it right). My boss is the greatest, she said I could use it for my floor. It meant cutting it with a splice in the middle, but that wasn't a problem in my mind. So now I have a very low cost floor, which will get coated anyway, so who cares about the gouges. I had made a cardboard template in one pc, so I just cut it where the splice was to be and went on from there. Cutting the overall sizes was a breeze with a10' shear to work on, ( Did I say, I LOVE my job ) :lol: Notched it out with a angle grinder and a cutoff disc, then finished the edges with a sanding disc. I had to trial fit a couple of times to get it where it was right , then glued the foam to the backside . I used 3M #77 Super spray adhesive to bond the foam to the alum. sheet. I used a palm sander w/150 grit metal sanding paper to give a good textured surface for it to stick to. I wiped it off with "gunwash" solvent to get rid of any oils and dust. Both surfaces were sprayed , let tack up for about 30 sec., (make sure it's where it's supposed to be, cause when they touch, it's TS if it's wrong), and roll together with a ballbat. I put the first small pc on and could pick up the whole sheet by just grabbing the foam, and got no separation what so ever. :D I used ss countersunk machine screws to install the floor, and put 4200 sealer under the heads of ea. one before tightening for the final time.

That about does it for this chapter gang, still waiting for the spray on floor covering. In the meantime , it's off to look for a TM battery, a bow halogen light, and a few pcs for the trailer this boat will end up on. If You're in the market for a REALLY NICE trailer keep this one in mind, it'll be for sale soon.
 

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novaman,

I have the same boat but I guess a new model than you. I have a 2003 I believe. I love the boat! Yours is coming out awesome! Let me know what speeds your getting with that 25 when you get it up and running. I have a 40hp on mine but haven't taken the boat out since I've been so busy traveling.

Ill be watching this closely! Keep it up!

F2k
 

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