Aluminum Jon Repair

[bplayer405]

I've seen a few YouTube videos of guys doing the marine battery conversion, but they don't say how long they last or how the charger works...

 

[Yomax4]

Worst case would "probably" be to use a multi bank charger like I have in my boat. I charge 2 12v hooked up for 24v for my trolling motor and a single 12v for starting all at the same time. Some folks are charging 36v trolling motor setups with the same charger but it's all done with 12v output. the onboard chargers are around $100 and also do a hi-tech battery maintain as well as an indicator that all is well in the system.

 

[bplayer405]

Saturday morning I mounted a piece of wood on the transom to raise the mounting height for the long shaft Evinrude 35. I opted for a 4 inch extension because my other outboard needed to be lowered to run properly. Could've went an inch or so higher because the the water pump was in the water at full speed and caused a soaking spray... Anyways, the outboard preformed pretty well and got me and one of my heavier friends up to 25 mph. That's fast enough for me. So, now I'm looking at rebuilding and raising the transom among my other mods for this project.

 

[Yomax4]

Saturday morning I mounted a piece of wood on the transom to raise the mounting height for the long shaft Evinrude 35. I opted for a 4 inch extension because my other outboard needed to be lowered to run properly. Could've went an inch or so higher because the the water pump was in the water at full speed and caused a soaking spray... Anyways, the outboard preformed pretty well and got me and one of my heavier friends up to 25 mph. That's fast enough for me. So, now I'm looking at rebuilding and raising the transom among my other mods for this project.

I remember watching the dealer mount a 25hp on my 1st boat. they said that the cavitation plate above the prop should be 1" higher than the bottom of the hull if the motor has no trim. Seemed to work well. I actually lowered one to fit a short shaft 18hp one time and it wasn't too bad of a job.

 

[Gary Fowler]

I remember watching the dealer mount a 25hp on my 1st boat. they said that the cavitation plate above the prop should be 1" higher than the bottom of the hull if the motor has no trim. Seemed to work well. I actually lowered one to fit a short shaft 18hp one time and it wasn't too bad of a job.

I always thought that level with the bottom of the boat was just right for the anti-cavitation plate or a little higher. Lower doesnt do anything other than produce a slight bit more drag. I have never owned a boat without power trim but the mounting height of the motor should be the same dimensions.

 

[bplayer405]

Getting way closer to working on this project again. I harvested two bucks and my wife harvested a buck on Black Friday. Plenty of meat for our freezer. A doe would be nice and put us over the top for sure where we won't run out of meat before next season. Late season is indeed here though along with the cold weather. Won't be hunting as much so I'll be gearing up to make progress on the Polar Kraft. Should make it back into the shop within a few weeks...

 

[Yomax4]

Getting way closer to working on this project again. I harvested two bucks and my wife harvested a buck on Black Friday. Plenty of meat for our freezer. A doe would be nice and put us over the top for sure where we won't run out of meat before next season. Late season is indeed here though along with the cold weather. Won't be hunting as much so I'll be gearing up to make progress on the Polar Kraft. Should make it back into the shop within a few weeks...

I only have 2 put up in the freeze. I really could make use of 1 more. Better buckle down for snow hunting.

 

[bplayer405]

Still looking about a month out. Have 2 vehicles that need serious repair. One has a bad transfer case, just picked up one to replace it and the other is my daily driver that now has a bad transmission. First and reverse noise in its 4L60E, bad rear planetary. Gotta have my horse to pull the carts...

 

[bplayer405]

This project is about to get a little help. I have a new tig welder on order that should arrive next Wednesday. Not a high dollar unit, but a good entry level tig with nice features. With a bit of practice I should be up and building again soon...

 

[bplayer405]

New welder arrived yesterday and I got a chance to get it set up and try my hand at it today. Gonna be a while before I can make things pretty, but I did find out I can go back over problem areas and fix them...

Shouldn't be a problem to fix the leaks in my boat and make some framework...

 

[bplayer405]

Made a new bracket that's level with the highest point of the transom to retry the long shaft 35. Now the cavitation plate is even with the bottom of the boat. Took the boat out to try it out and check for leaks again but the motor wouldn't start (problem with the primer bulb), but found a few more leaks. One leak is a rivet I welded and ground back down on the bottom. Grinding it down thinned the weld too much and the weld cracked. Live and learn. Its in the garage ready for cleaning and welding again to seal up all the leaks. One more time on the water after this to try the outboard height and see if it stays dry before framing and rebuilding the transom...

 

[bplayer405]

Day 2 messing with the tig and all of the previous mig welded bottom rivets are now tig welded and solid. Mig just didn't wel the rivets properly, or better put, I didn't. Maybe with preheat they would've been better. Once I hit the mig welds with heat from the tig torch they opened wide with a bunch of trapped slag and porosity. Of course the rivet head shrank to a ball revealing sealer also. Once brushed clean I was able to fill in the area with 5356 filler and seal it up great and the finished weld looks pretty good. I'm very pleased and hope these welds will fulfill their intended purpose... One thing I've definitely gotten good at is grinding tungsten, I tend to contaminate mine all the time...

 

[bplayer405]

Had the opportunity to try some aluminum abrasives sent to me from Yomax4 and they work really well. I was able to clean up some of those nasty looking spool gun welds on the front deck pretty quickly. A bit left to clean up and a lot more to go... Thank you Yomax4!

 

[Gary Fowler]

What TIG machine are you using. Some of your practicing looks like you are running too many amps. Aluminum is slow to heat up and most folks make the mistake of cranking the machine up too high so it heats up quickly like CS or stainless. Just turn it down so it isnt burning thru and let is slowly heat up till it makes a puddle then add your rod. One fillet looked really good for sure. Check the back side of your fillets, if you can see the fillet sinking in on the backside, you are likely too hot.

 

[Gary Fowler]

Being able to stop up the rivet hole with all that contamination is really an accomplishment.

 

[bplayer405]

What TIG machine are you using. Some of your practicing looks like you are running too many amps. Aluminum is slow to heat up and most folks make the mistake of cranking the machine up too high so it heats up quickly like CS or stainless. Just turn it down so it isnt burning thru and let is slowly heat up till it makes a puddle then add your rod. One fillet looked really good for sure. Check the back side of your fillets, if you can see the fillet sinking in on the backside, you are likely too hot.

I'm using a Weldpro ACDC200GD Tig machine. So far I'm quite happy with it, just not my skill at the moment. Gotta start somewhere though. Using the 1 amp per thousandth of material thickness approach, although I see people use 10% - 15% higher amps. The practice material was .072". My first setting was too hot, but me being slow to clumsily add filler, I feel, was the bigger problem.

The boat is the same material I was practicing on and the biggest reason I wanted a tig welder. I was running 70 amps max doing the rivets and using the foot pedal. Since I found a couple of the mig welded rivets leaking again I inspected and found the cracks. It didn't take much heat from the tig torch to open up the mig welds and expose the trapped contamination. The second pic showed that well. I clipped the rivet with side cutters and brushed away the contaminates. Welding it up was quite easy with tig once the material was clean. Pic 3 was the finished weld and 4 was cleaned up. I did go back and fill the small holes above the weld in the pics 3 and 4, caused by the mig weld contamination the tungsten. I reworked 13 mig welded rivets and did another 6. Have 3 left to do on the bottom before moving to the inside and seal any leaking keel rivets.

 

[Gary Fowler]

That is a nice machine. I just dont see enough demand for aluminum welding to buy a dedicated machine for it. Since I already have 3 machines that will do TIG (two with HF start) and an aluminum spool gun for the just in case moments, I would need for someone (a paying customer)to come to me with a need for a lot of aluminum welding for me to even consider one of those.
Cudos to you for getting that machine for your needs though.

 

[bplayer405]

Since my bead running skill isn't up to speed and I'm only using 42cf tanks, which seem to go empty pretty quickly, I tried some autogenous tig welding on the supports I cut down and moved from the front. Switched my Weldpro over to pulse and adjusted it to 1 pulse per second at 90 amps, 30% high amp and low at 20 amps. I did turn off the pulse to do the top crossover weld. Got full penetration and turned out way nicer than using my mig setup.

 

[bplayer405]

Had a little trouble finishing the install on the side ribs. Riveting them to the sidewall was easy enough, but tying them in at the bottom by welding them to the floor cross rib was a learning experience. I'm pretty sure the floor ribs are 6061 aluminum where the rest of the boat, including the side ribs, is 5052. They take heat differently, the floor rib took way more heat to puddle than the side rib. I figured out to run a bead with 5356 filler on the floor rib close to the seam to be welded first then tie that bead to the side rib. I had to play with the pulse settings a bit because I switched to the trigger switch instead of the pedal - hard to work from inside the boat welding on my knees... End result was good and it really stabilized the boat sides.

 

[bplayer405]

Setting in my flat floor framing revealed what I know to be a "Friday built" boat. Pretty easy to see the rear bench seat was installed low on the starboard side, something my ocd won't handle leaving this way. A bit more holes to fill...