1981 Bass Tracker III Restoration Before and After

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mcaliff

Member
Joined
Mar 1, 2021
Messages
6
Reaction score
16
Location
Monroe, GA
I picked up this boat for $500 in 2016. I thought about posting as I went along but I knew this was a project I would pick up and put down many times before I finished and I didn’t want to start a thread and disappear. So this is the before and after in hopes that I can provide some inspiration or ideas to pay back the group for the inspiration and ideas I gleaned here off and on.

Please don’t ask how much I have in this. One, I didn’t keep track of it. Two, you probably don’t really want to know. And three, I really don’t want my wife to know!

Here is a summary of the project with pictures to follow.

Trailer
Stripped and primed with Rust-Oleum Rusty Metal Primer and then painted with Rust-Oleum Rusty Metal Enamel. New axle, hubs, wheels and tires. New winch, tongue jack and hitch. New lights and wiring. New runners with several coats of polyurethane, new carpet and attached with galvanized hardware.

Boat
This is in essence a brand new boat. The only things original are the hull and the aluminum decking. That’s right, no wood decking. I completely disassembled everything and started from scratch. I had to build a new transom and coated that with a few coats of epoxy. The outer hull was primed with Total Boat epoxy primer. All rivets below the water line were sealed with West Marine G-Flex. The hull was painted with Total Boat Aluminum Boat Paint. The outside was rolled. The inside was sprayed. Pink foam board fills the space between ribs in the floor and side walls.

Here’s a (probably partial) list of everything new: Vinyl (Nautolex Shark Grey), Tempress seats, seat bases and posts, steering unit and cable, steering wheel, New Wire Marine switches, all marine grade wiring, Blue Sea fuse box and junction boxes, lights, bilge pump, live well pumps, fuel tank and hose, Duracell dual purpose starting/deep cycle battery, motor control box, Minn Kota 70 Edge 24 volt trolling motor, 2 LifePo4 100 amp hour batteries, all stainless steel hardware (except a couple of items I couldn’t find in stainless), fire extinguisher and emergency paddle.

Motor
The motor is not original. It is a 1981 Mariner 70 HP without power tilt/trim. I verified good compression on all cylinders, replaced the stator, trigger, starter, coil and rebuilt the carbs and water pump. It had sat for at least 10 years and it stared right up and ran like a champ.

I’ll be selling this if anyone is interested. I’m about 40 miles east of Atlanta.

Mike

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Nice work man it looks great! I did an overhaul on a 1987 bass tracker a few years ago it’s def a lot of work but man is it rewarding.
 
I picked up this boat for $500 in 2016. I thought about posting as I went along but I knew this was a project I would pick up and put down many times before I finished and I didn’t want to start a thread and disappear. So this is the before and after in hopes that I can provide some inspiration or ideas to pay back the group for the inspiration and ideas I gleaned here off and on.

Please don’t ask how much I have in this. One, I didn’t keep track of it. Two, you probably don’t really want to know. And three, I really don’t want my wife to know!

Here is a summary of the project with pictures to follow.

Trailer
Stripped and primed with Rust-Oleum Rusty Metal Primer and then painted with Rust-Oleum Rusty Metal Enamel. New axle, hubs, wheels and tires. New winch, tongue jack and hitch. New lights and wiring. New runners with several coats of polyurethane, new carpet and attached with galvanized hardware.

Boat
This is in essence a brand new boat. The only things original are the hull and the aluminum decking. That’s right, no wood decking. I completely disassembled everything and started from scratch. I had to build a new transom and coated that with a few coats of epoxy. The outer hull was primed with Total Boat epoxy primer. All rivets below the water line were sealed with West Marine G-Flex. The hull was painted with Total Boat Aluminum Boat Paint. The outside was rolled. The inside was sprayed. Pink foam board fills the space between ribs in the floor and side walls.

Here’s a (probably partial) list of everything new: Vinyl (Nautolex Shark Grey), Tempress seats, seat bases and posts, steering unit and cable, steering wheel, New Wire Marine switches, all marine grade wiring, Blue Sea fuse box and junction boxes, lights, bilge pump, live well pumps, fuel tank and hose, Duracell dual purpose starting/deep cycle battery, motor control box, Minn Kota 70 Edge 24 volt trolling motor, 2 LifePo4 100 amp hour batteries, all stainless steel hardware (except a couple of items I couldn’t find in stainless), fire extinguisher and emergency paddle.

Motor
The motor is not original. It is a 1981 Mariner 70 HP without power tilt/trim. I verified good compression on all cylinders, replaced the stator, trigger, starter, coil and rebuilt the carbs and water pump. It had sat for at least 10 years and it stared right up and ran like a champ.

I’ll be selling this if anyone is interested. I’m about 40 miles east of Atlanta.

Mike

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Excellent job very impressive
 
Beautiful work!

Selling is indeed bittersweet. I hope the buyer pays full price and gives you no hassles.
 
wishing I lived closer to you, I have gotten too old to this type of project anymore but looking for a rig so I can live out my last few years just fishing and enjoying the good life! You did a fantastic job with this one, you should be very proud of your success!
 
Awesome job on everything! What a transformation. A friend had a 1983 motor like that on a homemade14ftx5 wooden flat bottom hull. He would embarrass some bass boats back then.
 
I picked up this boat for $500 in 2016. I thought about posting as I went along but I knew this was a project I would pick up and put down many times before I finished and I didn’t want to start a thread and disappear. So this is the before and after in hopes that I can provide some inspiration or ideas to pay back the group for the inspiration and ideas I gleaned here off and on.

Please don’t ask how much I have in this. One, I didn’t keep track of it. Two, you probably don’t really want to know. And three, I really don’t want my wife to know!

Here is a summary of the project with pictures to follow.

Trailer
Stripped and primed with Rust-Oleum Rusty Metal Primer and then painted with Rust-Oleum Rusty Metal Enamel. New axle, hubs, wheels and tires. New winch, tongue jack and hitch. New lights and wiring. New runners with several coats of polyurethane, new carpet and attached with galvanized hardware.

Boat
This is in essence a brand new boat. The only things original are the hull and the aluminum decking. That’s right, no wood decking. I completely disassembled everything and started from scratch. I had to build a new transom and coated that with a few coats of epoxy. The outer hull was primed with Total Boat epoxy primer. All rivets below the water line were sealed with West Marine G-Flex. The hull was painted with Total Boat Aluminum Boat Paint. The outside was rolled. The inside was sprayed. Pink foam board fills the space between ribs in the floor and side walls.

Here’s a (probably partial) list of everything new: Vinyl (Nautolex Shark Grey), Tempress seats, seat bases and posts, steering unit and cable, steering wheel, New Wire Marine switches, all marine grade wiring, Blue Sea fuse box and junction boxes, lights, bilge pump, live well pumps, fuel tank and hose, Duracell dual purpose starting/deep cycle battery, motor control box, Minn Kota 70 Edge 24 volt trolling motor, 2 LifePo4 100 amp hour batteries, all stainless steel hardware (except a couple of items I couldn’t find in stainless), fire extinguisher and emergency paddle.

Motor
The motor is not original. It is a 1981 Mariner 70 HP without power tilt/trim. I verified good compression on all cylinders, replaced the stator, trigger, starter, coil and rebuilt the carbs and water pump. It had sat for at least 10 years and it stared right up and ran like a champ.

I’ll be selling this if anyone is interested. I’m about 40 miles east of Atlanta.

Mike

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You did a great job!
 
Nice work. What size boat is that? 1648 or maybe a little bigger is my guess.

Looks like a 20” transom too.

I like the color skeme. I’m not sure how much I would like that color after fishing it for a couple years, however; it looks really nice in its current condition.

Congrats!
 
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