Small leak at rivot

[Shane70]

Hey all, as some of you already know I recently purchased a new (USED) LOWE fishing boat, I have now had it in the water 4 times, just tonight after work I noticed water dripping from the front of the boat underneath. When I got under to look it appeared to be coming from a rivet right by the front seam. I have included pics to show you the location, it was very hard to tell exactly which of the 3 rivets it was coming from or the seam. It was a small drip, but a drip none the less.

 

My heart pretty much sank, I feel devistated, but I want your opinion on this, hopefully I am just paranoid and this is a minor issue. The boat itself has had a bit of water in it since i brought it home, but it has rained 8 out of 14 days and the cover that came with it may as well be screen, so I hope the majority of water I have noticed in the back when I pull the plug was coming from the rain we have been getting. It is a small slow drip but it leaves me with a few questions:

 

1) A small drip it is, but I wonder how much water is entering the boat from this

 

2) Is this easily repairable?

 

3) Should I right the boat of and go back on the place where I bought it, at least to repair and or ask for money back (bought from a marina)

 

4) Am I making a huge deal out of somethign very small?

 

5) Will it continue to get worse ?

 

Please give me your thoughts and opinions, I apologise if I am being needy and paranoid, but this is my first (nice) boat I have owned, and only my second ever. Up until this year I have never owned one, just enjoyed others.

 

This pic gives you a good idea on loacation

This pic although a lil dark, is just as a drip is forming:

[Fisherman]

Depending on how old the boat is(although new to you and bought from a dealer), they may be able to reset the rivets. I would suspect that loose rivets will get more loose from movement. I would call it an annoyance, but, you bought a boat, not a leaky tub.

[moparhawk]

believe me you've little to worry about. I banged a submerged tree in my smokercraft and had many rivets leak...alot! Finally found a shop and they fixed it perfectly, but did remove the interior to do so. Cost was 4700.00

[Cudz]

If you can get to the inside, have a friend hold a hammer on the inside and tap with another (ball type if you have it) on the outside. I did that with loads of my rivets and not nearly as many leak anymore. Worth a try and it is cheap.

Don't worry so much about it. Most riveted boats will leak. If it really bothers you get a good bilge pump and a manual bilge as well. I fish for 4 hours and I have about 2 inches of water in my boat all the time.

[Bass Tard]

I just bought an 89 Bass Tracker and it has leaks in a few of the rivets, it looks like the person before me tried to use some of that aluminum stick to fix it temporarily, but it's broke off. Every two hours or so of being on the water I just run the bilge for 3 or 4 minutes, and it doesn't seem to take on nearly as much water if it just sits at the dock overnight, mainly I think from hitting waves and the hull felxing.

 

I wouldn't worry about it too much, I plan to get mine fixed, but from what I understand about riveted boats is its really not that big of a deal.

 

Does anyone know if you can just weld the rivets shut so you don't have to worry about it anymore?

[sconceptor]

I too have a leak, maybe takes on 10L of water every 4hours. I went 3 days of fishing with minimal leakage, but first windy day on Nipissing, and crashing into those 1foot rollers on a lenghty ride up the lake seemed to cause the leak to open up again. The next few days, water would keep coming in.

 

When sitting at the dock, it would still take on water. One day when I wasn't going to be fishing or around to run the bilge, I pulled boat out of the water.

 

I"m not sure what would happen if I let it sit over night. Would it just fill up to a certain point and then become neutrally bouyant?

 

I have a short transon, so there's only an inch or two of freeboard at the transom. It would suck to have water start coming over and filling up the boat. I would think it would need a few hundred liters of water of sink the boat, but I don't like worrying about the leaking, and when it's raining hard at night. On a few fishing trips I'd wake up to run the bilge in the middle of the night during storms.

[craigdritchie]

If you just bought the boat recently, then it's worth taking it back to the marina and talking to them about it. They may offer to fix it, they might not. It depends on the establishment and what their policies are.

 

I used to have an old 12-footer I used for hunting ducks, and it had a couple of leaky rivets where the keel came into the bow. I fixed them with a metallic paste called Aluminox. It's like grey toothpaste ... you smear it around the rivet then let it dry and sand it smooth. It worked pretty well. The boat never leaked again (well, at least not in that spot) despite being run into a couple of beaver dams and up on shore repeatedly.

[Cudz]

You can try JB weld but I would take it back to the marina first.

If you really want to fix the problem, drill out the rivets and put new ones in.

[Wild]

A permanent never leak repair is to remove the rivets and TIG or MIG weld the holes/seams. A cheaper low buck option not really recommended would be to braze or ultra low buck method that may work,less permanent would be to leave the rivets in place and solder them to seal.

[Rich]

Mega Metal it!

[Tybo]

there is only a few places you can weld on aluminum boats.

Even if the hull is welded.

 

Aluminum is a non-farris metal.

This mean that it shrinks from heat.

If you weld near rivets the aluminum will shrink around the rivet, choking and weaking the rivets

beside or near the weld..

You can't weld seam because of the above statement, also there is a sealent placed under the

seam plate.

you can't weld the plates do to shrinkage and hardenening of the aluminum. It will crack right

be side the weld.

All boats need to flex. if you take the flexabilaty out, it will crack some where else.

Edited August 15, 2008 by Tybo

[Wild]

Tybo there are plenty of fully welded aluminum boats on the water with no issues. I have never found issues with welding aluminum except porosity due to contaminated welds.

[Andy]

If you can't easily access the inside of the boat to tighten the rivets, I'd go to Home Hardware and get a set of Mr Sticky's Underwater Epoxy. It comes with two tubes that you mix like regular epoxy. It is whitish in color, but sticks like crazy and is very tough while retaining some flex. I had a tiny leak around the drain for the livewell, I couldn't tighten the fitting anymore, so I sealed it with this stuff. It looks like it will last the life of the boat. Worth a try for about $20.00. I'd clean and sand the area of the seams and rivets as per the instructions, and seal both rivets and seams, assuming you don't mind the whitish color. It's UV reistant and waterproof. Andy

[Shane70]

Thanks guys, I went to the place I bought the boat. Here was the offer, they would fix it properly for me by replacing the rivets, however it means removing the deck, floor and console, which scares me a bit, because it may not be the same once everything is placed back in. They offered to so this for me with me picking up %25 of the cost. However, they were very very confident that if I used the proper liquid aluminum weld apoxy, that it would never leak again.

 

So what was decided was that I would try the epoxy (which they gave me for free) until the end of the season, this way my boat was not tied up in the shop as they are very very busy. At the end of the season if the epoxy does not leak, I can drop the boat off

 

WOOT

 

Everyone I talk to locally has told me just to use the epoxy and leave it, not a biggy, they do not recommend removing decks, floors, and consoles.

[F7Firecat]

sand it up real good and put a couple layers of fiberglass on it

[Tybo]

Wild, I never said that you can't weld aluminum.

I said their is places you can't weld.

 

On fully welded hulls. The the ribbing is precisely at point where the boat gets it's

max flex, with out compromizing the integrity of the welds.

 

When the first aluminum rivet jon boat was designed, it went from paper to use in four weeks.

Since then all rivet boats have been built much the same.

Where the brake throughs came from the grade of aluminum,rivets and sealent, and don't

forget about auto-cad.

 

The testing on welded aluminum has not stop to this present day.

Up to not long ago most boats that where welded cracked some where.

 

Don't get me wrong.

I'm not against welded. At todays standerds I would buy one,

It' just I fish open water in the dead of winter. I have hit alot of ice.

I would perfer to knock out a couple of rivets or bend a plate. then to get a crack or rip a

weld out.

Edited August 16, 2008 by Tybo

[Bass Tard]

Sorry Tybo, I don't want to be annoying but I want to be sure I completley understand what you're saying.. Welding around the rivet would not be a good fix because it would crack, correct? I mean, I kind of figured that to be so, but if thats the case then some kind of epoxy would not be the solution either, and the only real answer would be to replace the rivets. Correct?

 

I'm a composite guy by trade, I'm really out of my realm when it comes to fixing aluminum.

Thanks

[Wild]

Wild, I never said that you can't weld aluminum.

I said their is places you can't weld.

 

On fully welded hulls. The the ribbing is precisely at point where the boat gets it's

max flex, with out compromizing the integrity of the welds.

 

When the first aluminum rivet jon boat was designed, it went from paper to use in four weeks.

Since then all rivet boats have been built much the same.

Where the brake throughs came from the grade of aluminum,rivets and sealent, and don't

forget about auto-cad.

 

The testing on welded aluminum has not stop to this present day.

Up to not long ago most boats that where welded cracked some where.

 

Don't get me wrong.

I'm not against welded. At todays standerds I would buy one,

It' just I fish open water in the dead of winter. I have hit alot of ice.

I would perfer to knock out a couple of rivets or bend a plate. then to get a crack or rip a

weld out.

That it the only disadvantage with welding aluminum as it's considered a permanent repair but really it's just more work to cut grind fit and reweld which would make the repair costs rather expensive . And yes on a riveted design there are areas which should not be welded unless modified which is beyond the scope of most repair shops. Cracking issues at least where welds are concerned are more due to the process however modern TIG welding process and equipment have reduced the problem significantly.

 

Shane I think the shop has given you the best option but don't apply the epoxy without doing proper preparation of the aluminum first, that means cleaning the aluminum by removing paint and especially oxidation which is critical for a proper and lasting repair. If the rivets are loose they really should be reset before using epoxy otherwise you are wasting your time.

[Scott S]

Hey Shane70; It look's like your leak is in the same spot as my boat. I took a wire brush and cleaned up all around the area and put JB Weld around were it was leaking and haven't had a leak since. I didn't want to tear up my floor either!

Scooter

[greyhawk]

Had the same problem with my boat - only more rivets along a bow stringer. Problem was initially solved at the marina where purchased. This included, luckily, only removing the bow casting platform and re-tapping the original rivets. To make sure the fix was perm

anent I also applied a tubed compound called Sicoflex which can be purchased at most marinas in a variety of colors. Apparently, this product is used on the west coast for some pretty major damage. The boat has remained dry under all sorts of conditions.

 

Having said this, remember it is an aluminum boat and a small amount of water in the bilge is of no real concern with an appropriate bilge pump. Enjoy the w

ater and fishing!

[gdelongchamp]

Boy , sure were a lot of comments about that little rivet. That story reminds me of when I worked in a fly-in outpost 200 miles from anything. If a boat had too many leaking rivets I would lay down a fibre glass cloth to cover the entire bottom of the boat and dump a gallon of resin on it. That would last up to two seasons. A lot of fishing was down in the rapids and the boats were portaged almost daily taking a real beating.