79' 16ft bass tracker mod

[Jp4whln12]

First off im new to the site. Ive been lingering around for months though and looking at everyones mods. There is some amazing stuff on here and everyone seems to have great ideas.

Now for the boat. After months of searching on CL i finally found a boat i liked (more so the price), a 1979 16ft bass tracker with the original 40hp mercury. I was only looking for a max of 14ft and i wanted a flat bottom with the front end that isnt exatly a point (from reading up on here i see they are called Mod V's?) I've been fishing in it for the past 3 months it runs perfect and i love it. It did have 6 leaking rivets but nothing too serious. The boat and trailer obviously show their age. All in all i think it was a great deal, i only paid $650 for it.

Heres some pictures of the said boat.

 

[Jp4whln12]

With hunting season getting close and temps dropping, i figured fishing can wait till spring. Yesterday i started the tear down.

This is about as far as i got untill i was tired of drilling out rivets and removing screws.

Looks like it once was home to some mice!

Its amazing how much water the foam was holding under the floors. I also found that 3 of the ribs are cracked and will need to be repaired, Probley welded?

 

[mmf]

Good deal for the price! You can get those ribs welded and re-inforced pretty easy. Check your transom wood for rot, do not overlook this! It's a pain to do but workable. I will be watchin' you're build and good luck!

 

[Jp4whln12]

I wasn't planning on replacing the transom at first. It looked impossible to get out. I ran into a thread on here that showed how to get at it so I figured I better do it now while everything is out of the boat anyways.

What's the best way to reinforce the ribs?

 

[BYOB Fishing]

I had a cracked rib also, but I've seen aluminum welds in high stress areas like this crack pretty easily again. I just drilled four holes, two holes on either side of the crack and bolted strips of aluminum to the rib, sandwiching the rib between them.

Check out my mod for some transom tips. Still waiting to get it welded, but thats all thats left.

Matt

 

[Jp4whln12]

So after lots of rainy days and work, I finally made some progress. Cleaned out the garage and got the boat in there. I made a motor stand and got the motor off the boat. I had a hell of a time getting the throttle cable off the motor! Took lots of swear words and some thinking to figure out how it comes off.

Tomorrow I hope to cut the splash guard off and maybe get the transom out. I'll have pics hopefully posted up tomorrow.