1997 Tracker 185 Pro Jet (MV1850) rebuild

[bulldog]

Looks really good. Keep the pics coming.

 

[SlowRollin']

Wow, you've made a lot of progress! Keep it up.

 

[Novicaine]

I got the tunnel all welded in (from the outside) so it should be water-tight:

A shot from above, I may need to do some work smoothing the tunnel entrance for better water flow:

The next step is to flip it over, put back in some of the inside framing, check for leaks, and then tack weld some of the inside tunnel flange to the hull for extra strength.

Then after that, it's motor and pump back in with minimal controls/interior. If the hull performs OK, take out motor/pump, flip it over, and put some UHMW on the bottom. Then test drive. If still performs OK, put back in a lush interior, maybe paint the exterior. IF.

I would have put in that "V" shaped cross piece (you can see the rivet holes for it in boat bottom in the pics above), but the 4x rivet gun I bought online (which is supposed to accept .401" rivet punches), I can't fit my .401 rivet punch in it. So I can't do any riveting until I call their tech support Monday.


Ugh, now that I said it, that's a lot of work left. But I am having lots of fun on this project, it's very satisfying.

 

[DaveInGA]

You're doing a real fine job. Great looking work doing the repair.

 

[Novicaine]

A little more progress...

I had someone stitch weld (with a MIG welder) the inside seams just to see how well a MIG works over TIG. For this type of weld, laying on the floor of the boat, the MIG was much quicker and easier.

First shot of the back of the boat with the raised tunnel:

Got the last floor support rivetted in and filling the boat with water to do leak test:

If you look close, you can tell it's got water in it... this shows the last support that touches the tunnel entry.

My brother marking leaks, the orange marks are leaks:

Done with first round of leak marking, now draining:

We found about 8 pinhole/crack leaks in my welds. Most I looked at and said "oh yeah, that was a tough spot". We found a few leaky rivets and re-bucked them. Once I get the boat flipped I'll post a pic of all the leak spots marked. None of the leaks we too bad, I went boating with worse leaks before this remodel.

 

[River Rider]

Any updates? Really interested in your results as tunnels are always a tricky area when it comes to jets. Hope all is well.

 

[Novicaine]

Any updates? Really interested in your results as tunnels are always a tricky area when it comes to jets. Hope all is well.

I re-welded all my leaks and found a few more, but they are all pin-holes, so I'm not going to sweat it now. I am now putting back in a minimal interior and the jet/engine so I can test the tunnel. I'm kind of hoping to test the tunnel this weekend.

 

[bigwave]

I cant wait to see the results....between you and PSG-1, yall have some mad skills....makes me jealous. =P~

 

[Novicaine]

Got the boat going enough with a minimal interior to do some testing of the tunnel performace.

When I first installed at first I was scared -- this extra 2" of tunnel height almost looks like the pump will be out of water!

View of the pump mounted from inside the boat:

Here's the tunnel from the bottom with the jet installed finally, this looks NICE!!!

Dropping in the engine:

Ugh, I hope I labeled all the wires sufficiently:

Motor bolted in:

Console bolted in:

Hooked up hose to the cooling system and started motor to test things. I had the fuel pump in backwards! But after switching that, it started right up.

High shot of the minimal interior for the tunnel testing:

Minimal interior engine bay, don't ya just love my Ace Hardware battery box?

Shot of the engine bay:

I took it out on the river for my first test drive with the new 2" tunnel ... of course, it started raining, so I didn't get pictures or video, but I drove about 1/2 mile upstream and back down and it ran as good as ever, I didn't notice any slowdown or extra cavitation. I even did some fairly tight turns and I think cavitation is no worse than before. So, that is GREAT news. I think maybe tomorrow or sometime this week I'll take it out again and do some more testing and burn out the 10 gallons of gas I put in.

THEN, I empty the interior, flip it over, and put on UHMW!! Then rebuild the interior for real this time.

 

[Cubman]

Very impressive work. I will be watching this closely. I may have missed this but what is the rise/run slope of the tunnel?

 

[Novicaine]

Here's a little video of more river testing this morning. It hit slightly over 30 mph on the GPS, not bad for the condition of the wear ring and impellor.
I did some tight turns and even with a really high bank angle, it didn't have cavitation, except for when going over a wake.
I think the removal of the water-logged foam really helped the handling -- it felt much more responsive and less tank-like than ever before.
All in all I'm elated with the changes so far from this rebuild, can't wait to get the UHMW on the bottom and finalize the interior.

Video at
https://youtu.be/g9NuFnatJRg

 

[fool4fish1226]

Looks and sounds great =D>

 

[Novicaine]

Lots of progress, the wife & kids were out of town visiting her parents this week.

Remember this keel skeg that ran down the center of the boat? In this OLD picture you can see it:

I cut it off, and welded up the rivet holes and seam... my logic is, if I need it for handling, I can add it back. If I need it for hull protection, I can add a UHMW piece. But when you hit a rock with that skeg the boat just stops because that skeg digs into the rock like a knife. And I need to sliiiiide over things, handling is 2nd.. I also roughed up the entire bottom of the hull and lower sides with a sander in preparation for "the next step"

What is the next step? Well I was debating putting UHMW on the bottom, I still might someday, but for now, since the bottom of my boat has rivets and is so beat up, I decided to have it coated with Hardline:

https://rhinoliningsindustrial.com/products/polyurethane_and_polyurea/hardline/22/32

I came to this decision based on Rhino's Hardline info page:

https://rhinoliningsindustrial.com/case_studies/impact_-_abrasion/202

Which contained this "application note" for aluminum boat's:
https://rhinoliningsindustrial.com/gfGy6S44anlz/1272558518Aluminum Jet Boat Hull.pdf

I contacted the author of that note, who has this on his Predator in Alaska and he swears by it, so I decided I'd give it a try. If it doesn't work as I hope, I can always put UHMW on top of it, and the liner should at least make things smoother for the liner to mount to.

So I dropped it off at Zeibart in Ottowa, IL.. here it is 8 hours and $916 later ($100 for self etching primer, and about $7 per sq foot).

Check out how it ALMOST hides the rivets:

They claimed they'd apply it 1/8" thick... I wanted 1/4" they said they'd try but it didn't sound like something they could control that accurately. I had them not do any "roughing up", tried to keep it slick/smooth as possible.

I have to wait 24 hours before I can flip it/use it...

My initial impression of the liner is that it is awesome stuff:
- When wet, it is definately slicker than the aluminum.
- It really smooths out the bottom in terms of previous damage, scratches, dents, and rivets
- Looks much nicer than bare aluminum
- If it stays stuck to the boat and is as tough as they claim it is, this really ought to help protect things.
- I noticed if I "slap" the coated parts with my hand they seem more solid than the uncoated parts... the aluminum flexes less.

So, here's to HOPING this product does what it claims. I'm a little leary, the product could be overstating it's ruggedness, the application might not have been done quite right, who knows? Lots of things could be wrong. But I like to try stuff out for myself, so here we are.

This weekend, I'm going to clean the carbs and start putting it back together. Eventually I'll repaint the back of the transom and upper sides, I'm thinking a camo theme would look cool to contrast the black sides.

 

[Zum]

Looks good...hope all the reveiws in the future are positive ones.

 

[lowblazah]

Simply Awesome! You are making yourself one wicked river machine!

 

[Loggerhead Mike]

Nice shop and slick job on the hull

 

[Novicaine]

Small update: I got it all put back together enough for another round of testing, this time with the Hardliner on the bottom and the deleted keel skeg (for a smoother bottom). The handling was a little bit more "wiggly" without the keel skeg, but when I turned the jet, it turned the boat, no problem. It felt fine. I didn't get a chance to test it more because the motor died about 1 minute into testing and water was coming out of the bottom 2 cylinders when I pulled the plugs out. Hopefully it's just the exhaust divider gasket, that has happened to me on this boat. I have a new gasket on order. Sigh.

 

[Novicaine]

New update: Bought a 1997 Rinker Rocket with a 120 hp Sportjet for use as a "donor" for my boat for two reasons:
1) In case I can't get my 90hp running. I think it's a gasket issue -- could end up being cracked block issue.
2) Make mine go faster, or more importantly, run at less rpms for cruising. The 120's jet is geared higher than the 90's. It's basically a 90 with one extra cylinder, one less carb (2:1 cyl:carb instead of 1:1), and higher gearing. All other parts mostly interchange.

The cost of the used Rinker is less than the replacement parts if a few components on my engine break (inlet grate, wear ring, jet pump housing, etc). I got a decent deal, it even includes a marine stereo with MP3 input which I'll use on my boat also. Also the 120 has only 2 carburetors than my 90 which has 3. So that's less carbs to clean/repair over time. Also, for a 1997 boat engine, I 'm going to need spare parts.

The problem? My wife a kids love the neat little Rinker Rocket sitting in the driveway and don't want me to gut it out!! They want to take it to a lake and go boating... We'll see what happens there. Maybe if I get my Tracker interior done, they'll like it better.

If everything around here wasn't so shallow and hazardous, I'd certainly consider using the Rinker instead, it's a nice lightweight little package for zipping around.

 

[Novicaine]

Here's my donor boat with the 120 hp Sportjet:

Pulling that motor out:

I have the new motor installed in the boat, just need to get the gas line and control cables hooked up.
I'm hoping to get one nice day of boating before winter sets in !!

PS:If anyone wants to buy the Rinker boat & trailer with no engine or jet, PM me.. I'm open to any offer!!

 

[Novicaine]

New update: I sunk it. :x

Details:
I got it all running with the new powerplant, it ran & handled great. Took it exploring on the river to see how it performed, and a few hours into it, we hit a rock just under the surface while on plane, maybe 10-15 mph, and it shredded a hole in the bottom and the boat filled with water in about 10 seconds.

Fortunately, we were only in a few feet of water, so the engine/etc stayed dry. Whew!

We had to tow it out of the river and through the woods with towstraps and a 6x6 ATV.

The bedliner bottom actually held up well ... the boat slid right through the woods, you can tell the liner saved the tin from some wear & tear. Looking at it, I think that with a stronger plate bottom, the bedliner would definitely be an asset.

My welds on the tunnel, even though they took a direct hit, held. Which was good to know.

The bottom line is, the bottom of my boat is too thin for bouncing off rocks. It's .100 material that is 15 yrs old and that's just not going to take a hit.

So... I may patch the holes with rivets, get the liner re-applied in that area, and stop attempting to drive in low water rocky conditions, or scrap the hull and eventually buy something more heavy duty, or maybe weld/bolt something like a 3/8" plate to the bottom. We'll see, but for now, I'm done for the summer. Time to get my mind off this project for now.

The observant reader may think: WHY? Why would you bother attempting this? I answer this: If you look at the river, it looks like a boat should be able to go on it. Very few rocks sticking up, it's generally dredged, and even the shallowest spots are 1-2 ft deep. So I look at it and think: I should be able to boat on that river, I am a man with tools. The flaw, I think, is that a sharp rock 2 inches under the water is actually a very difficult issue to surmount.

I'll try to post some pics one of these evenings.