Drain Plug location...

[55'Fleetwin7.5]

I have an old 1953 Aluminum Aero-Craft. It is 14 foot. It has no drain plug. I was acustomed to having one on my old boat. Where is the smart place to place it? If in the transom... it would need to be about an inch off the bottom to avoid the seam... At that point I would be left with quite a bit of water not coming out.. If not there... where? Does anyone go straight down, through the floor? sounds to risky to me!

Secondly, How do you fix rivets? (not pop rivets... the real ones... is there a special tool?


Thanks

 

[tashasdaddy]

Re: Drain Plug location...

thru the transom, then you can use a strip of torn up t-shirt, put thru the drain so some is on the bottom of the boat, and a tail hanging outside, down below the boat. the rest of the water will wick out the rag.

gluvit is the best thing for sealing an aluminum boat.

 

[Silvertip]

Re: Drain Plug location...

Google the term "bucking rivets" and you will learn how to tighten rivets.

Here is just one: http://www.rvproject.com/rivets.html

 

[55'Fleetwin7.5]

Re: Drain Plug location...

Thank you... Great Idea!

 

[CATransplant]

Re: Drain Plug location...

I added a drain plug to my Sea King boat. I used one of the plastic ones, with the screw in plug and o-ring. It works great, but, as you note, it's about 3/4" above the bottom, since I didn't want to mess with the folded seam.

To make matters worse, the Sea King, which was made by StarCraft, has ribs across the boat, with no drainage channel. The boat was designed to be a car-topper, I suppose, and it's a sturdy design, but drainage isn't good.

I store it on its trailer, with the tongue raised quite high. That drains most of the water. But, it still collects some when it rains. What I finally did was buy a wet-or-dry shop vac at a garage sale. I keep it in the garage. When I want to use the boat, I just suck all the remaining water up with it. Works great!

Since the boat's aluminum, no harm is done by the water, and the shop vac also sucks up any leaves or other debris that blows into the boat.

 

[tashasdaddy]

Re: Drain Plug location...

keeping a tarp on the boat keep 99% of everything out of it. the boat is ready to go, when you are.