Bed liner boat bottom?????

[Lodgepole]

I have a 1992 Lowe 2200 deck boat (aluminum). It is leaking around rivets mostly along the keel. I am sure other rivets here and there are leaking. I have heard of some owners having the bottom of their aluminum boats coated with bed liner in the Tulsa OK. area. The boat has a flat floor that is riveted in and carpeted, therefore I can't get to anything from the inside. Pop rivets can be used from the outside to replace loose rivets but they have holes in them.
I have been told that bed liner can be put on smooth. Has anyone seen bed liner used or used it for this purpose?

 

[sschefer]

Re: Bed liner boat bottom?????

It's not uncommon but less common now after a few years of field testing. The biggest complaint I've heard is that it's slippery and adds a lot of weight to the boat.

Regarding blind rivets, you can get closed end blind rivets that work fine below the waterline.

The preferred method for fixing riveted boats is to tighten the rivets by peening them. You and a buddy can do this in a day easily. You just need a block of steel and a ball peen hammer. You're buddy holds that backer block against the head of the rivet and you hit the other side of the rivet with the peening end of the hammer. This will expand the rivet and tighten the joint.

When you've got them all tightened up, fill it with water and see where it leaks. Then go back and hit those rivets again. If you still can't get it to stop then use GluvIt to penetrate and seal the seams.

It's a lot easier to do this then realize later that you made a mistake with the Rhino Liner. I would think that getting that stuff off would be a major undertaking.

 

[charkbait]

Re: Bed liner boat bottom?????

I believe he's talking about the keel and not the interior. I just did my whaler interior with durabak and will be doing a keel guard with the smooth durabak. So far I think its great and I can assure you it is not slippery and is no heavier then a gallon of regular paint.

From this

to this...so far

Edited picture size.

 

[jhtaylor]

Re: Bed liner boat bottom?????

I tightened the rivets in my 14 foot tinny last year. I used a small air hammer. I sacrificed one of the chisel tools that came with it. I cut the chisel portion off and turned a concave in the remaining shank to fit the shape of the rivet head. This part could be done with a drill bit or a die grinder and burr. It does not have to match exactly. I was able to reach both sides of the rivets myself so I held my own bucking bar. I had the whole thing done in about a hour.

I then coated the seams with gluvit. After that dried I painted the interior with light gray paint. It is now a nice dry fishing machine.

 

[Lodgepole]

Re: Bed liner boat bottom?????

As I said, the boat floor is riveted in and carpeted and has space between the floor and inside bottom. Therefore it is out of the question to remove the floor. So I can't just tighten the rivets. My question, though not very clear was about coating the outside bottom with smoth bed liner.
Whaler looks gteat, but it's fiberglass. Tell me more about durabak.
Where can I get closed end blind rivets and how do they work?
What is gluvit?

 

[BIGcarpy50]

Re: Bed liner boat bottom?????

I don't know if your looking for someone to say this but if the rivit is leaking your better off taking the floor out to fix them. if you don't want to waste time with that you should just by a bilge pump and let it leak. The bed liner can go on sort of smooth. but every place you have a leak won't really be fixed by it. I don't think it has the quailities to seep into the joint and stop the leak . it may cover it but why do all that work to scrape the boat/and liner on your first trip out and need to reapply.


Just my opinion. good luck in whatever you do

 

[tashasdaddy]

Re: Bed liner boat bottom?????

Gluvit is the Aluminum boats best friend.

 

[sschefer]

Re: Bed liner boat bottom?????

I must admit I misunderstood the original post. My bad.

So, I think everyone will agree that your first step is to fill the boat with water and find out exactly where it's leaking and how badly.

You should know that the recommended permanent fix is to either retighten the rivets or drill them out and replace them with Truss head stainless machine screws. That doesn't mean that it is the only fix, just what most good shops would do.

 

[KLINDWW]

Re: Bed liner boat bottom?????

Oh no, here we go again.

 

[jhtaylor]

Re: Bed liner boat bottom?????

Gluvit is an epoxy material that is designed to wick into joints and seams of aluminum boats. That is what it was designed for. Google it and you will get a good description. I applied it one weekend and did not use the boat until the next weekend. It takes it awhile to set up. I used it on the inside of my boat just because I could. It is supposed to work equally well if applied on the outside. The beauty of this product is that it will remain flexible enough to allow for the expansion and contraction of aluminum. My two cents worth: Why try to re-invent the wheel? This stuff was designed to do exactly what you are looking for.

 

[Shelbyb117]

Re: Bed liner boat bottom?????

takeing that floor won't be as hard as you think ,drill out the old revits and when you lay the floor back the holes are already there for the new revits
some are loose most likely any way
i've replace'd the wood flooring in my tracker alum 17 ft several times untill i gave up and did it all in alum