WAY OT Jon Boat patch

Gary Mitchell

Well-known Member
I just bought a Jon boat to fish the Sac River in. The inside looked pretty good but when I got it home and turned it upside down so it would turn water I saw that the rivets had been covered with what looked like that gimmicky black spray gunk they advertise on TV. Worse, it appeared to have been doped prior to that with some orange/brown latex feeling stuff. That said, it looks "leaky" to me after all. I'm thinking that I might brush it all clean with an angle grinder brush and then wipe it good with carb cleaner or Goo-gone or something similar. After I get it back to just a leaky old Jon boat with clean rivets, is there a good coating to use on the rivet areas before I repaint the whole thing? Thanks, gm
 
Gary, I had a 16' bass boat that had leaky rivets. It had a floor in it, so I couldn't back the rivets to re-set them. I filled it about half full of water, then got under it and marked all of the drips. Drained it, then flipped it upside down on the trailer and wire wheeled the spots clean. I took it to a local welder and he did a real slick job of welding around each rivet that I had marked and cleaned. It cost a whole lot less than I expected and it was leak free.
 
Getting the flex out is my first suggestion. If you can get to the rivets, drill them out and seal the seams with urethane door and window sealer. re rivet with oversize rivets or SS round head bolts. Jim
 
3M makes a Marine Sealer that worked very well for sealing leaky rivets in aluminum boats. I found it at Walmart in the fishing gear/camping section. It was about $15 a tube ten years ago.
 
This is caused by the boat flexing in rough water or high speeds.
The rivet holes are the weak point.

I have seen them fixed several ways.
Weld up the rivets
Use a marine grade epoxy like Gluvit
Let it leak and put in a automatic bilge pump.
I have even seen the whole bottom painted with pickup bed liner paint.

The above works in rivers and if the leaks are small.
In open lake water that can get rough with waves you are just kicking the can down the road.
Scraping the rivet boat and buying a all welded boat is the only real solution for rough water.
 
The recommendation I've heard is to clean it up like you say. Slather Gluvit into the joints, then before it sets up hammer the the rivets on the outside of the boat while someone holds something solid against the inside.
 
I think I would clean it up and replace the rivet. Then it shouldn't take much of a sealant to prevent it from leaking. Depending on where the rivet is you could probably get away with using flashing caulk on it. It stays flexible.
 
If those rivets are the hammer in type they cause problem due to when hammered in to place it causes the metal to harden some and then causes cracks. That was a common problem with the Tracker Marine boats back when I worked at Tracker Marine and many boats came in under warranty and where cut up instead of being repaired
 
Don't try to weld it after that gunk is on there! If you try to weld it after putting whatever gunk is on there you will likely end up with holes what ever size the gunk patch was. And no, there is no cleaner that will change that. The best solution is the guys who said to re-hammer the rivits and coat it with more gunk. I don't have any recomendation on what to use tho. But I do know about welding boats, and they are usually so thin that when you hit it with the welder the gunk that has etched into the aluminum will basically expload a hole the size of the patch. It is rare for a boat to be thick enough to get enough heat to cook out the impurities before that. You can weld them if they are clean tho.
 
> 3M makes a Marine Sealer that worked very well for sealing leaky rivets in aluminum boats.

That would be 3M 5200. Polyurethane, sticks to anything. Very messy, but solves a lot of problems. Unlike silicone, you can paint over it.
 
I would try to tighten or replace the rivets. But I have the tools (rivet gun, sets and bucking bars) to drive AD rivets. Do you know anyone who is building a metal homebuilt aircraft?
 
Gary,
I have a very old aluminum boat that looks like crap. Looking like crap is a good thing, no one wants to steel it looks so bad. I flipped the boat over, used a wire brush on a drill and cleaned all the rivets. Then I got a tube of silicon caulk. Caulked each rivet, no more leaks.

I'm not sure flex seal will harden and stick to aluminum like silicon. I'm thinking flex seal might peal off is boat drags the bottom of lake. Good luck.

When it comes to painting aluminum, you need to use s special primer or paint will flake off.
geo
 

On my 14ft jon-boat I drilled them out and put 1/4" licence plate bolts in the hole using facet sealing washers to seal them.. I did not have to do them all but did do a bunch... I used it for 20 years with no leaks.

That was early 80's I am sure with today's advancements a sealer of some kind would be the way to go about stopping the leak...
 

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