1984 Bass Tracker III Restore

[Firewalker688]

Hello there, I wanted to share some of my journey with you on the Bass Tracker. I bought this boat for $1400 around 5 years ago. It was in need of carpet when I got it and it took a while to stop using it long enough to restore it. Here are a few pics along the way. I hope you enjoy seeing the transformation as much as I have. I am just about done with it. Just in time to reel in some bucketmouths!!!



This is the starting point after sitting under an oak tree one summer. Please not the person who found my trolling motor before I lost it..... didn't need tools.... Why not take part of the deck with it?

 

[Bob_VT]

Re: 1984 Bass Tracker III Restore

When you rebiuld that trolling motor mount............ mount some aluminum plates under the deck

 

[dstroud1987]

Re: 1984 Bass Tracker III Restore

nice boat! can't wait to see her all done up!

 

[Firewalker688]

Re: 1984 Bass Tracker III Restore

Once the project began it was pretty easy to gut the entire boat. Old decks had seen better days and it was time to breath new life into the old girl.

 

[Firewalker688]

Re: 1984 Bass Tracker III Restore

When you rebiuld that trolling motor mount............ mount some aluminum plates under the deck

The unfortunate thing is they took plates and all. I used to have some under there. If the deck wasn't so bad it would have required some tools. Thank goodness they are cheap!

 

[Firewalker688]

Re: 1984 Bass Tracker III Restore

Here are some pics of the fresh decking. I went by what the guy at the specialty lumber yard told me. One of the local marine places use some type of wood that they make road signs out of. I have read about using marine grade plywood and that was what I set out to get. We shall see how it holds up.

 

[Firewalker688]

Re: 1984 Bass Tracker III Restore

These next few show the console in it's original glory. So many holes you would think swiss cheese. I wanted to clean it up on the outside and underneath. Big rats nest of wires/splices/fuses........ Yikes.

 

[Firewalker688]

Re: 1984 Bass Tracker III Restore

Ok, some body work and TLC on the console. I used bondo glass to fill the holes including the cluster of top side fuses to the left of the wheel. I never have cared for those much and being different sizes and brands made it worse. It had to go.

I will install a fuse block underneath with some type of adhesive. Don't want any more holes in the console than needed.



Looks a bit better don't you think?

BTW: I chose that paint color because I liked it a lot. (it doesn't match the carpet so I ended up painting it midnight blue metallic..... guess what... That didn't either. So, final color was a Silver metallic by duplicolor. Close to the color in these pics) Oh well..... it's a journey right?

 

[Firewalker688]

Re: 1984 Bass Tracker III Restore

Ok, now we are getting somewhere. I originally had a lot of wires that ran along the starboard side on top. I was able to route the wires inside the wall and below the cover on the back side of the boat. It cleaned up the look a LOT. Here are some more pics of dry fit deck boards.



I restored this three button trim/tilt switch. The insides of these are so simple and easy to fix with some emory cloth. I just scuffed up the contact points and ran multimeter across to see if it was good. A little black spray paint. Good stuff.

 

[Firewalker688]

Re: 1984 Bass Tracker III Restore

Ok, we are starting to go in with the carpet. Some of the pieces took some head scratching to figure out what order to cover them. I didn't want any exposed fasteners and I was able to pull that off.

I hope this is interesting to some of you.

 

[Firewalker688]

Re: 1984 Bass Tracker III Restore

More carpet progress pics.

 

[proshadetree]

Re: 1984 Bass Tracker III Restore

Rock out that looks good. Did you seal the wood first?

 

[jigngrub]

Re: 1984 Bass Tracker III Restore

Your plywood decking is MDO (medium density overlay), good stuff! Waterproof, hard, and with very few voids.

Your work looks good.

 

[Firewalker688]

Re: 1984 Bass Tracker III Restore

Some more work on the carpet of the rear deck. On the sides I caught the carpet under the edge and screwed the pieces down. Then added adhesive and flipped the carpet over and used a small putty knife to wedge the extra in by the rails. Took some time but it is tight. More pics



One thing I would do a little better (I know this is a carpet layers trick) is make sure to use the same orientation when putting the carpet in. I cut them correctly but they got flipped around in the process. Oh well. It doesn't bug me enough to re order carpet and re do the job. You can see a difference in the color of the carpet on two of the pieces.

 

[Firewalker688]

Re: 1984 Bass Tracker III Restore

Rock out that looks good. Did you seal the wood first?

I fiberglassed both sides of all pieces. They seem pretty strong. You can see the darkness from the resin on one of the back deck pieces. Thanks for the compliment.

 

[Firewalker688]

Re: 1984 Bass Tracker III Restore

Your plywood decking is MDO (medium density overlay), good stuff! Waterproof, hard, and with very few voids.

Your work looks good.

Thank you for naming that..... was sitting here wondering what it was. Thanks a lot.