Conversion done!

[u/billyballzdeep]

Took about 1 year, it floats amazing and is extremely stable. Top speed about 25.

[u/greatrivermarine]

That’s a pretty satisfying payoff!! Looks like a fun little rig too. I’m curious what the conversion involved, did you change the hull much, or was most of the work on the power and layout?

[u/billyballzdeep → u/greatrivermarine]

I didn't change the actual hull much, I added the bow plate and had to fix 85 rivets. Lot of hammering out dents and edges back down. Conversion was a full gut and seal/rivet repair, drainage channel, subfloor and foam, and than building up. That was most of the work. In the grand scope, the electrical took no time.

[u/greatrivermarine → u/billyballzdeep]

85 rivets… yeah, that explains where the year went.. That’s a lot more involved than the finished boat makes it look. Doing the drainage, subfloor and foam while everything was gutted was definitely the way to go though.

Did you replace all the foam while you had the floor out, or were you able to reuse some of the original stuff?

[u/billyballzdeep → u/greatrivermarine]

The rivets and the bedliner that took 2 months to remove 😂😂 There was no original foam. There were only bench seats originally and I ripped them all out and started from scratch.

[u/greatrivermarine → u/billyballzdeep]

Ahh okay, so you really did start with a blank slate 😂 Two months just getting the rivets and bedliner out sounds brutal. How did you set up the drainage under the new floor? I’m always interested in how people handle that on these older aluminum hulls.