2000 Tracker Pro Team 165

[sokmace]

According to the plate on the boat, it's only rated up to 50. I heard about the USCG formula and looked up the Code of Federal Regulations and read it for myself. I took the measurements and the formula says it could go up to 87.## HP, and you round up to the nearest increment of 5. So legally Tracker could have plate rated this boat at 90 but nothin stops them from rating it lower. I think they do that as a marketing ploy. "Hey here's our 50HP boat, but if you want a 90 you'll have to upgrade your the PT175."


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[VAbassin]

Yea that makes sense. The make you go up a foot a longer for the extra motor. But then again it makes you think if they cut a corner on the transom and didn't make it strong enough for that bigger motor. So they stamped it for the motor they think the transom would support. Who knows though. Nothing a little Welding can't fix.

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[sokmace]

Ya, so the carpet is going to take forever. I did the driver's seat bench last night and it took me an hour and a half.

I feel like it looks pretty good for the first piece I've ever carpeted, but it takes so long. A brand new razor only made 2 cuts before it started shredding the edges. On this piece, where the carpet wraps around a sharp edge, the carpet sort of parts away and you can see straight through to the backing. Anyone know of a way to avoid this? Am I stretching it too tight? I really didn't tug on it at all - just wrapped it around and applied pressure so the contact cement could bond. I'm not so concerned on this piece because it'll be hidden for the most part once the boat's back together. But I'd like to put a stop to it before I get to the more prominent pieces. Here's what I'm talking about:

This only happened on the edge where the carpet has to make a 180 degree turn, which won't be visible for the most part. The 90 degree angles look good, and those are the one's that you'll be able to see. I'm just a little concerned that this will weaken the material and start coming undone sooner.

 

[VAbassin]

Hm iv never seen that. Maybe it's just that piece. Take your time with the carpet man. You'll appreciate the time put it a few months later when it looks fantastic

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[gatorglenn]

If that's the sharp edge of the metal then yes that is normal. On 90° bends just don't over tighten it. Is that 16 ounce or 20 ounce carpet


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[sokmace]

This is the 20oz. I figured I'd see something like that in 16oz, but not the thicker stuff. I did the other bench panel today and it did the same thing around the right bends, even if I was really loose with it. The closer I look at it, the more I think it's purely cosmetic. The woven part and rubber backing is still intact.


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[VAbassin]

I mean when you screw it down you shouldn't see it. I think you'll be good

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[gatorglenn]

I know you should see the root of the carpet some. But you should not be able to see through it. You said it's 20 but are you sure they actually ship 20


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[sokmace]

I exchanged the treated plywood for untreated and got the floor and part of the deck cut and sealed with epoxy resin today:

All the black spots are those little love bugs that are swarming this time of year. Guess they like the scent of resin because they flocked to it. I decided to wrapp the floor with a layer of fiberglass. The floor ply is only 1/2". Between it being the lowest point where water will collect and me being a big guy, I felt like it could use a little extra protection. In the above pic, I'd only glassed half at the time and then realized I didn't have a 3" hole saw for the drains. Quick run to Lowe's, cut the drain holes, and glassed the other half.

After fitting the front deck on the boat, I measured out the length/width of my Motorguide TM pedal and figured out where I wanted it. I'll have to put it further back than I'd like, though, because there's a bulkhead that runs the width of the boat right at the front lip of the hole I cut out. It supports the deck, so I didn't want to cut through it. This will place the pedestal mount a little further back too. There will be another 3' of deck behind this, so it should be plenty of room

While the deck and floor are curing, I went ahead and cut up the 1" foam board and put it in the space under the floor. One 4x8 sheet filled this area in just fine. The 1" was just the right thickness for the middle where it's deepest, and it bends without breaking to fit the contour of the hull. In the pic below, between each stringer there are 2 long sheets that span the width of the hull, and then some small pieces in the middle. I'm going to pick up 2 more sheets to fit around the boxes under the deck.

Since I'll be installing the deck soon, I needed to get the rod guide tubes put in as well. Here's a pic of the loose fit:

I had to leave space in the top/center for the recessed trolling motor tray I'll be fabbing up soon. By using the tubes as guides and getting the angles right, I was able to get much longer lengths than I originally expected. The bottom left and right tubes are the shortest of all them and will be able to fit 6'6" rods. The 5 that are kind of in the middle can fit 7" rods. The 2 at the top can fit up to 8' rods. These lengths are based on extending the deck 36" back to the console and have a lot of extra wiggle room to get rods in/out. I'm going to play around with it and see if I really need to go back that far.

One thing that was really helpful in gaining every possible inch here was cutting the PVC ends to fit the contours of the hull and stringers. Doing it this way gives about 2" extra inches on each tube.

I'm going to give the resin a few days to cure before I carpet the deck and floor. I need to carpet the bulkhead before I can install the floor anyway (the bulkhead where the rods will go into the PVC). I'm trying to decide how I want to finish the rod guides. I'll wrap the carpet and through the hole a bit, but that may be all. I found some things online that resemble a whisker biscuit for a bow that I thought about using to cover the PVC guides, but at this point that would be purely cosmetic.

Now that the cleaning/scraping/grinding days are mostly through, I've got to say I'm really enjoying myself now. It's pretty cool to get to make a little progress and start to see the vision come together

 

[onthewater102]

I see I'm probably too late in suggesting this, but have you looked into the thin-walled non-pressure rated Sch. 40 PVC designed for gravity drain lines? I believe it was Richg99 had a post at one point about how you can take a wine bottle, heat the bottom with a torch and use the contoured bottom to flare the PVC almost like you would a hydraulic brake line. It would give it a nice finished look when you secure it using silicone to the cutout areas as the flare covers up the silicone and any over drilling that occurred.

I'm pouring expanding foam insulation in around the rod tubes after I secure them in place. That space isn't going to be good for anything else anyway.

 

[sokmace]

I actually was looking for the thin walled PVC first, but they were out of it at Lowe's when I was purchasing materials last weekend. I looked up the post from Richg99 and found what you're talking about. Here's the youtube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2uYj_qUqzc. The guy in that video only really talks about the process, but there are additional links to people doing the actual work in the related videos on the side of the screen.

I think I might test this out to see how it works on thick-walled PVC I already bought and cut to fit. I did see a post where Richg99 said he's done this with the thicker PVC and a heat gun, so it's worth a try on a test piece to see if I like the result. Although, I may need to try a propane torch because I don't know if my $7 harbor freight heat gun gets hot enough for something like this. I'll give it a shot. If I can get it to roll into a tight lip, I'll do all of them. Then, I could sand it smooth and spray paint the lip and first few inches of the inside of the tube with some leftover gunmetal metallic to match carpet (also gunmetal).

I'm going to silicone to secure the tubes to the bulkhead, but I also need to pick up some perforated duct straps to hang a few from the bottom of the front bulkhead.

Do you know where to find the expanding foam that's meant for this application? I assume this isn't the Great Stuff expanding foam made by Dow Chem, right? My sense is that there's some special closed-cell stuff that comes in just the right density to maximize buoyancy per sq ft. I've been planning on filling this gaps around the tubes with another sheet or two of the blue 1" insulation foam Like you said, the space isn't going to be good for anything else. Seems like the expanding foam would be a MUCH better option for this type of space because it would get all around the rod tubes and fill it up just right. I'll just need to make sure I have a space for the trolling motor pan.

 

[onthewater102]

https://www.uscomposites.com/foam.html

You want the 2lb density foam. You mix it 50/50. I like using Solo cups as they have the ribs on the side that make for easy measurement & mix with either a Popsicle stick or a disposable plastic utensil as the foam will just about ruin whatever container/tool you mix it in/with because it gets quite sticky. Try mixing 1/2 a Solo cup worth first (with a 1/4 cup of each part A and part B - I reuse the Part A & Part B measuring cups as I'm doing my pouring) and you'll get a sense for how much expanded volume a 1/2 cup of material will make. You can make multiple pours into the same cavity to get it full - you just have to wait ~15 minutes or so between pourings. The two parts are different colors so when mixed it has a uniform light creamy color.

It expands best if you warm the materials up to ~80 degrees either by working during warmer months or by leaving the cans on a heat vent in your house. I stored them in my shed and tried mixing some foam while they were ~55/60 degrees from the over night chill and it really made a difference in the expanded volume, or lack there of as it worked out.

Just make sure you've figured out how your drainage from the front will be working before you go pouring this stuff because it will expand and get into everything. It is a liquid when you first pour it. If you have areas you don't want it getting into I suggest sealing them off with caulk ahead of time. I tried to use duct tape to block off seams and while it stops the liquid from getting through it seems the expansion lifts the duct tape out and allows the foam through. Next time I use this I'm taking the time to cap the drain channels in the bottom of the boat with 1/2 cut pieces of PVC pipe (sized so that when cut the top of the 1/2 pipe is level with the top of my support ribs) and sealing them down all the way around with caulk before pouring foam. This way any water running along the underside of the boat shouldn't be able to sit in contact with the foam and yet the foam can fill the bottom of the boat between the ribs. Filling these voids with expanded foam not only dampens the noise running the boat in rough water but also supports the floor from flexing in chop which will help keep the rivets from working themselves loose (this is a concern for me as my hull is riveted).

Drainage turned into a problem on my 1436 build and was a nuisance to fix after the fact. I wish I'd spent more time prepping the drainage channels before I poured the foam and I won't be making that mistake with my Tracker.

 

[sokmace]

I had a fairly productive day. I was able to get a number of pieces carpeted, including the floor and the panels that run along the gunwales. Also carpeted the control box panel. Basically, I want to get the pieces covered that need to go in before I can begin building the new deck section.

I let everything dry for 3-4 hours and then started screwing it back into the boat. It got dark on me quick tonight, so I didn't get any good pics of everything reinstalled on the boat. I'll pull it out of the garage in the daylight this weekend for the photo shoot. It's looking great!

I don't think I've mentioned this before, but last time I had the boat on the water was around this time last year. The trolling motor cables coming off the pedal were really hot (burned my foot ) and the momentary switch worked sporadically. At the time, I had no idea what the red switch was on the side of the pedal (label had fallen off) - constant on/momentary/High bypass. I flipped it around randomly and continued to fish with it toggled to constant on. The entire time I thought it was only running when my foot depressed the button.

Anyway, I schooled up on TMs the last few months and figured out what the 3-position red switch does, and I also figured out why the momentary button wasn't really working. The microswitch on the pedal had gone out. I found a replacement on boats.net last weekend. It arrived today and I installed it. I also picked up a new 50 amp circuit breaker, so I wired it all up to a battery and ran some function tests. I'm happy to report that everything works now, including variable speed for constant/momentary mode, as well as the hi bypass. There was a lot of rust/corrosion going on inside the pedal due to the hardware used, but I got it all cleaned up. You'd think that Motorguide would get on the stainless steel bandwagon for their products.

I ordered a long roll of carbon fiber vinyl ($11 on Amazon Prime) that I'm planning on using to cover a sheet of aluminum as a dash panel to cover some gauge holes that I'm omitting from the console and cover some cracks. I may also use it in some other "spots", but that's top secret for now 8)

Anyway, this is what I got from USPS yesterday. Thanks, Obama.

The entire package was smashed, so I shipped it back today and got a refund. It has a really sweet low-gloss/matte finish and I like it a lot, notwithstanding the tragedy pictured above. So I went ahead and re-upped on a replacement roll from the same supplier. Hopefully this time the postman will treat it a little more gently.

 

[onthewater102]

Yeah - the post office doesn't have a reputation for attracting the best and brightest. Just received a package in CT that was from MD but it took almost a week and a half to get here because they sent it to Michigan, then Massachusetts, then NEW HAMPSHIRE and FINALLY to CT...clearly being a union monkey does not require a 3rd grader student's understanding of geography. Another package I received this week also took a week and a half to get here, this one coming from Memphis TN where it was picked up on the 4th, status was "in transit" starting on the 5th but not until the 11th did it FINALLY make it to the Memphis TN origin facility...so it just drove around in the delivery guy's truck until the light finally came on in his brain to move that package he's been looking at for a solid WEEK to the sorting building from the truck. Its so hard picking things up, reading, putting them down.

 

[sokmace]

The Easter Bunny was good to me

This was handmade by a friend of mine that I go to church with. Turns out, he's also a member here. Thanks, Adam (aka super_dork)!

Profile view with the pedal in the flat position

I cut the deck with a circular saw and then test fit for these pics. That's why it's not perfectly flat. I'm planning on using a router to take maybe a 1/8" strip off the top so the lip of the tray will sit flush with the deck. I'm going to support the bottom of the tray, so I'm not too worried about weakening the deck. I'll seal up the edges with resin again to ensure it's solid and water tight. Obv this will get the gunmetal grey treatment...

Heel all the way down:

I tested it out and it feels like your feet are standing on the same ground when the pedal is flat. It's really close to flush with the deck. I had planned on using much smaller dimensions, but I'm glad I got this one a little bigger than one I would have made.

I also got the stern deck back together so I can begin carpeting.

Knocked out the livewell, hatch lid frame, and the panel where the rear pedestal mount goes. I probably should have waited on the rear deck and reinstall the the fuel, bilge, and livewell plumbing while it was all still uncovered, but I was anxious to work and I'm waiting on pumps/hoses for the time being.

Progress is slow but steady. It's really starting to look like a bass boat again

 

[onthewater102]

Was there a support column beneath that rear seat mount? I have one on the Tracker III that is in the way of putting the fuel tank in the same position you've got it in there. I'm toying with putting a pair of channels spanning the area behind the fishtank for the seat bolts to anchor to, but they'll be both heavy and expensive. I don't want to use wood anywhere in the boat, but I suppose if I had to put one piece under there even if it went bad I could easily swap it out from the underside without having to totally re-do the entire boat.

 

[sokmace]

So you have a vertical support that runs from the bottom of this crossmember/panel down to the floor of the splashwell? I agree that would be a pain and really limit the possible configurations of the tank and batteries. When you say channels, are you referring to something like the aluminum bracing that runs on the bottom of the deck hatch lids? You said heavy and expensive, but that doesn't add up to me, so I must not understand you're plans. If it's heavy, I assume you mean wood, which isn't really expensive at all. And when you say heavy, I imagine a series of aluminum support braces that you have tig welded into place to bolster the strength of the panel (expensive, but much lighter than wood).

Here's a description of what my looks like. I can try to take some pics tonight if you need them, but won't be able to pull it all the way off as I've already riveted everything back into place. If you zoom in closely on the 3" hole in my last pic, you can see there is a layer of plywood under that panel. The plywood is 1", and the aluminum panel itself is a beefy 1/8" thickness. It ain't bending for anyone less than 500lbs - I'd bet on it. And with a co-angler in that weight class, we'd already be past the USCG plate rating for weight, so bending that panel would be the least of my worries.

The shape of the aluminum panel on mine is designed specifically to rest on top and around the 1" plywood. On the sternside, it has a lip for the splashwell deck lid. But on the livewell side, the lip folds under the plywood so that it holds the wood tight against the bottom of the aluminum panel. There are 3 bolts + lock washers on each end of the panel that go into a small piece of angle aluminum to hold it at the right height. Lastly, the front edge of the panel is riveted to the dividing wall that separates the splashwell from the livewell area.

I assume folks have this fear with wood because of 2 things: weight and propensity to rot. If you're making some kind of custom-built race boat out of carbon fiber and grams matter, the weight issue makes sense. But the rot issue has always been strange to me. There are ways to inhibit degradation like sealing in resin and wrapping in glass. Even using a coat or two or three of urethane could extend the shelf life of a piece of wood on a boat. Worst case scenario: you design the piece to be easily changeable and call it a sacrificial piece, like an anode on an outboard.

I wrapped & resin'd all 3 wood pieces in the boat (front deck, floor, and the 1" ply cross-member on the rear deck). I don't plan on getting the interior of my boat wet, maybe only if I get caught in the rain. I will also be keeping it in the garage and I have a shop vac and carpet fan to use on it to air everything out after I fish. I fully expect any wood on my boat to last longer than I'll own the boat.

 

[onthewater102]

I have a much thinner piece of plywood and much thinner aluminum, so it's got a vertical brace I'd like to do away with.

I was either going to use this type of aluminum channel:
https://www.onlinemetals.com/merchant.cfm?pid=1063&step=4&showunits=inches&id=298&top_cat=60
, which is rather heavy and expensive for the little bit that will go into it, or I was going to go to heavier wood & seal it knowing it may rot.

My opposition to wood in this is I'm taking the time to go through and rebuild everything - I never want to have to do any of this again. I do not have a garage to store this in, and while I cover it as best I can pooling rain water or snow on occasion get by the cover and get the inside of the boat wet.

Was there foam along the sides when you removed the covering panels? I'm hoping there wasn't as that would give me somewhere to add foam evenly should I add more storage to the front in place of some of the foam up there.

Rod rack is looking nice - I'm assuming you'll be building a box around it the rest of the way as you go.

 

[sokmace]

Your take on wood is fair considering you know it will be exposed to the elements. I'd probably do the same if I didn't have space in the garage for my boat.

My opinion on an aluminum channel like the one in your link is that it's probably overkill. I'm sure it would do the job, but I agree that it's heavy and expensive. I think you could probably get plenty of strength from some square aluminum tubing that you can pick up from Lowe's: https://www.lowes.com/pd/Steelworks-3-ft-L-x-1-in-W-x-1-in-H-Aluminum-Plain-Square-Tube/3053655. I wonder if you could get rid of the plywood altogether and replace it with a couple of aluminum tubes running along the edges of the panel instead. If you could find the right size tubing, you could get rid of the wood, have lighter material, and probably even strengthen the panel more so than the plywood.

I'm going to use this exact size tubing as the vertical supports in the frame for my deck extension. It's 1" tubing and is 16 gauge (1/16th" walls), so I think it would be plenty strong. I bet you could find a way to run some of this tubing under the panel to add some rigidity and allow you to omit the vertical brace. Plus side: it's much cheaper and is very light.

There was no foam under this panel on my boat. The panel covers the back of the splashwell and is the part that the hinge for the splashwell hatch is riveted to. It's just an empty space below there. I say it's empty - but it's where the fuel cell and batteries will live once I get the tank mounts and battery trays riveted back into the splashwell. All the foam on my boat is under the aluminum panels on the sides of the splashwell (where my tools are sitting in the 2nd to last pic). With that said, if my mind were set on adding foam, there's plenty of room to do so - especially if I downsized to a smaller 6 gallon fuel tank. I also have quite a bit of space I could add expanding foam around the livewell itself. I just don't see a need for it as I never took any out of the back of the boat. I do plan on replacing a lot of the foam I removed up front, though.

The rod storage is getting close to taking shape. I'm extending the deck back to the console and there will be a hatch that goes right down the middle from where you see the tubes going under the front deck. This hatch will be hinged right above where you see the rod tubes now. I still need to heat up the rod tubes and mold them over a bottle to create a flanged lip. I'll hopefully get to that this week and then begin framing out the deck extension. Like I mentioned, I'm using 1" square tubing for the vertical parts of the frame, and connecting those using 1 1/2" aluminum angle (1/16th").

 

[onthewater102]

My question about the foam wasn't about the rear portion of the boat - but the sides running along where your rod locker will be built