coleman crawdad

[basshunter1234]

hi everyone im new to this site and got an account to see if anyone could help me out with a raised deck idea for my coleman crawdad. the mx weight is 425 and im looking to do a front and back raised plywood floor in it but when I look on the internet I only see people doing the jon to bass boat conversions with aluminum jon boats.. nothing on coleman crawdads which is plastic.. has anyone done anything to there coleman that they can give me pointers on types of wood or how to go about it in the lightest way possible so I don't add a crazy amount of weight to it so I can still fish 2 people on it? how can I add floatation so I can put more weight on it when im doing this project? I would like to install livewells in my boat when and if I do the deck on it.. any ideas and feedback will help im lost on what to do and how to do it with this crawdad..

thank you

 

[Jim]

Having owned a crawdad, I high recommend that you do not put raised decks on it. IT will be dangerous and you will for sure 100% fall in. The crawdad is too narrow to do it safely. Your best bet is to put two carpeted floors in front of the seats so you can stand. You can also move the rear seat back a few inches for more room. That is about all I would recommend for the crawdad.

It is an awesome boat because of its shallow draft but lacks in stability when you go high in it.

I would also use a cooler live well that you can add and remove as you please.

 

[earl60446]

Sounds like some good advice Jim is dishing out there.
Tim

 

[redbug]

Im with Jim on this one raised decks on a craw dad equals a wet fisherman
I had a crawdad and chose to remove the metal seat frames and put a full length plywood floor
in the bottom wit 2 pedestal seats I hah them higher than the frames so I wasn't chewing on my knees
it was fairly stable but even standing up was shaky

 

[doc1976]

Everything said so far is 100% right on. Those little boats are cool as hell but way to shallow floating for decks. I will disagree on removing the original seating support completely due to needing the cross bars for strength of the boat from side to side. I have owned two, still have one of em. What I did was build floor sections in three pieces to have basically a solid floor front to back. Replaced the original plastic seats with carpeted pieces of wood and swivel seats. Then I put carpeted pieces over the "trays" on the front and back, with cut outs for mounting of a small gas engine and/ or trolling motor. Then if you want to stand on those you can althought small, it works. But you will need real good balance. The cooler live well is perfect for these. As far as a fish finder, I built a portable clamp on unit, so I could utilize better technology that the portable ones you could buy at the time offered. It was basically a peice of ABS pipe with some brackets for transducer and head unit.

Good luck with your project and please post some photos.

 

[basshunter1234]

Thank you everyone that responded I appreciate all your help I think your all right with the weight and balance it's already hard enough to stand in the boat as it is. I think I'll build a built in love well unit and I'll build a stand for my fish finder! Any one have any ideas on how to make a home made foot motor mount? That folds up and drops into the water? Thanks everyone who responded

 

[redbug]

Like I said I removed the frames for the seats but left the cross members that are on the plastic front and back decks they were more than enough side support I removed the plastic decks and used 1/2"plywood cover in carpet I placed an old stop sign under the wood and mounted a 12 volt bow mount trolling motor on the deck. I also left the 3 tubes the ran along the bottom of the boat and placed a single piece floating floor over top of them and again used stop signs under the floor to support the seat pedestals
I moved the front seat back a bit so I could use the foot controlled motor and the back seat was in about the same place as it was.
The boat was great for fishing the small lakes I even had it out a few times on the tidal Delaware river

 

[basshunter1234]

I see what your saying now that all makes sense. And yea I love the boat it was passed down to me from my grandfather and I can get into places with that boat that I couldn't get into with any other boat it's a great boat. Thanks for your help. Like I said I do not have the actual mount for the foot motor it's just the rod of the motor with the pedal and blades but nothing to mount it too so I had to custom build my own. I'm going to look for a mount do you know of any places I could check that has a universal motor mount? because the trolling motor is a old motor guide and I don't think they even make a model like that anymore.. Would minn Kota have a universal mount?

 

[redbug]

You can try bassboat central in the for sale section
or jones trolling motors do a google search
there are also a few places that carry old parts that may have something laying around
I bought my DAD new for $250. I was given a $50 dollar mail in rebate and a set of 4 Rubbermaid coolers with the purchase
When I moved out of Philly I gave the boat to my brother in law and I think he gave it to his friend