2000 Tracker Pro Team 165

[CastingCall]

Great job!
You can heat the pvc pipe with a heat gun and give them a slight, gradual bend if needed. Looks like you could do that with the center one in the last pic, to clear the aluminum beam and gain a bit more pipe length.

To finish the ends of the pipes, heat them with a heat gun or torch, and push it onto the pipe on top of a tapered-neck beer bottle. This will get a flare started. Then reheat and push down on a flat surface (metal table or glass pan).

[sokmace]

Another good idea, thanks! I'm going to carpet the front face of the bulkhead there where the fishing rods will enter the rod tubes. I was thinking about carpeting over the tubes, cutting some relief cuts over the holes, and then folding/gluing the extra 1" of carpet inside the tube.

If I can flare the ends of the PVC and make it look good, I think I'd paint the flared lips and spray a bit inside the tube (match the gunmetal grey) and then let the lip show instead of covering it with carpet.

I got the thick-walled PVC, so I'm not sure how it will turn out. I'll run some tests and report back how it turns out. Thanks again for the tip!

[CastingCall]

I'd vote no carpet on the inside of the tubes... carpet will just hang-up tips/guides/hooks, and get frayed. Even a slight flare on the PVC will help slide the rods into the tubes, and keep tubes from pushing forward.
My guess is any paint (even plastic paint) will likely get beat up with constant rod in/out. I'd leave them white.

Another idea to finish off the tubes, would be to slice off thin sections of a PVC coupling (like 1/8 - 1/4" thick rings) and PVC cement them on the end of the pipe. Sand the face once the cement cures and would make a nice flanged stop.

[Lil Mo]

Great work. I too was given a boat similar to yours-a 2002 Fisher 1600 with a 40 Merc. This one swung in a lift over salt water for a few years but surprisingly needed only a good cleanup, new pedestals and bases, some rewiring, and a new trailer to get it home. I have a small leak on my livewell thru-hull which I should get to in a week or so. Enjoy your rig.

[sokmace]

Ya, Lil Mo, nothing like a free boat! I probably could have gotten away with just fixing the motor and gone back to fishing, but I really wanted to make this one "mine".

I had a fairly productive day. I was able to get a number of pieces carpeted, including the floor and the panels that run along the gunwales. Also carpeted the control box panel. Basically, I want to get the pieces covered that need to go in before I can begin building the new deck section.



I let everything dry for 3-4 hours and then started screwing it back into the boat. It got dark on me quick tonight, so I didn't get any good pics of everything reinstalled on the boat. I'll pull it out of the garage in the daylight this weekend for the photo shoot. It's looking great!

I don't think I've mentioned this before, but last time I had the boat on the water was around this time last year. The trolling motor cables coming off the pedal were really hot (burned my foot ) and the momentary switch worked sporadically. At the time, I had no idea what the red switch was on the side of the pedal (label had fallen off) - constant on/momentary/High bypass. I flipped it around randomly and continued to fish with it toggled to constant on. The entire time I thought it was only running when my foot depressed the button.

Anyway, I schooled up on TMs the last few months and figured out what the 3-position red switch does, and I also figured out why the momentary button wasn't really working. The microswitch on the pedal had gone out. I found a replacement on boats.net last weekend. It arrived today and I installed it. I also picked up a new 50 amp circuit breaker, so I wired it all up to a battery and ran some function tests. I'm happy to report that everything works now, including variable speed for constant/momentary mode, as well as the hi bypass. There was a lot of rust/corrosion going on inside the pedal due to the hardware used, but I got it all cleaned up. You'd think that Motorguide would get on the stainless steel bandwagon for their products.



I took another piece of advice from casting call and ordered a long roll of carbon fiber vinyl ($11 on Amazon Prime). I'm planning on using this on an aluminum panel to cover some gauge holes that I'm omitting from the console and cover some cracks. I may also use it in some other "spots", but that's top secret for now

Anyway, this is what I got from USPS yesterday. Thanks, Obama.



The entire package was smashed, so I shipped it back today and got a refund. It has a really sweet low-gloss/matte finish and I like it a lot, notwithstanding the tragedy pictured above. So I went ahead and re-upped on a replacement roll from the same supplier. Hopefully this time the postman will treat it a little more gently.

[sokmace]

The Easter Bunny was good to me







This was handmade by a friend of mine that I go to church with. Turns out, he's also a member here. Thanks, Adam (aka super_dork)!

Profile view with the pedal in the flat position



I cut the deck with a circular saw and then test fit for these pics. That's why it's not perfectly flat. I'm planning on using a router to take maybe a 1/8" strip off the top so the lip of the tray will sit flush with the deck. I'm going to support the bottom of the tray, so I'm not too worried about weakening the deck. I'll seal up the edges with resin again to ensure it's solid and water tight. Obv this will get the gunmetal grey treatment...

Heel all the way down:



I tested it out and it feels like your feet are standing on the same ground when the pedal is flat. It's really close to flush with the deck. I had planned on using much smaller dimensions, but I'm glad I got this one a little bigger than one I would have made.

I also got the stern deck back together so I can begin carpeting.



Knocked out the livewell, hatch lid frame, and the panel where the rear pedestal mount goes. I probably should have knocked out the fuel, bilge, and livewell plumbing while it was all still uncovered, but I was anxious to work and I'm waiting on pumps/hoses for the time being.

Progress is slow but steady. It's really starting to look like a bass boat again

[CastingCall]

http://www.stewartssurestep.com/

[sokmace]

It's almost time to mount the deck, so I spent some time this evening working on a few things that need to be completed prior to fastening it in place.

Since I have the new recessed TM tray now, I had to remove the cross brace and move it back quite a bit. It's at the back end of the TM tray, and a few inches from where the pedestal mount will be installed. I also needed to make a few relief cuts so the rod guides won't bend or rub.



After I chose the final positioning for the deck, I measured, marked, measured again, and finally cut out the storage lockers that will be on each side of where the PVC tubes are. Each storage locker is 24" x 16" (at the narrow end up front). Plano 3700s are 14x9x2", so I should be able to fit a dozen boxes on each side. The 1-1/2" aluminum angle braces were riveted in place and will split duty for supporting the deck, hatch, and another section of carpeted plywood that will be the vertical wall at the front of the locker. You can see the carpeted floor already fastened into place.



The rod guides will also have to be complete prior to screwing the deck down. I decided to give it a go with the flange some folks have recommended. I used my cheap, low power Harbor Freight heat gun and the bottom side of an EZ Swivel pedestal mount. I did some test runs on a few scrap pieces, and I'm glad I did. I was initially heating too far up the tube. When I compressed the tube against the form, the PVC would buckle a few inches above the area I was trying to flange. I also got it too hot. Here's the result I got on a few of the tubes that were good enough to install:





Overall, I'm pretty pleased with the way these turned out. I'd like to sand them a bit to really smooth out the edges and make them look as professional as possible. Some folks have tried to talk me out of painting them, but I'd really like to put some color on them and see how it holds up. I can always touch it up on occasion. I use rod gloves for all my rods, so I really don't think it will get scratched up that much.

[CastingCall]

Those tube flares turned out great! Nice job!

[sokmace]

Well, it finally happened. I ran out of carpet tonight Looks like I'll be placing an order to finish the job. What's surprising is just how short I was. I've carpeted the floor, front & rear deck, bench, and two large gunwale panels. I also covered two small pieces of plywood for the tackle lockers on the front deck, but they were small enough that I could use scraps. I started with 6x25'. Out of curiosity before I bought the carpet, I got on a chat with Tracker support and asked them how much they used at the factory. The lady went off to research for 20 minutes and came back to tell me they used 16 feet on the 2000 Pro Team 165 - ya there's no way that's accurate. The boat has 16 feet of horizontally carpeted surfaces alone.

I'll have more in about a week. I was thinking a minimum order of 10 feet should do it, but I'm going to take some measurements and really plan out what I need. One thing I didn't think about up front was the direction of the carpet and how that plays into the cuts you make. I ended up making every piece run to the back of the boat, so a lot of the pieces had to be positioned in a less-efficient way on the roll when I cut it out.

Anyway, Here's how far 25 feet of carpet will go on a PT 165:



I decided to place all the remaining pieces in their places so I could see what's left to carpet, and also really just to sit back and appreciate how good it's starting to look.

For the trolling motor tray, I wanted the lip of the tray to sit flush with the deck, or as close to flush as possible. I don't have a router and didn't want to spend money I'll likely never use again. So I used a circular saw with the blade set to 1/4" so I could take a little material off the deck and allow the lip to fit nicely into position. I went slow and test fit the tray often so I could ensure I wasn't going too deep or getting outside the lines of where the lip would land.

You may be able to see in the below pic, but I also pre drilled holes near each corner to the tray will be held tightly within the recess. I guess you could say I have a recessed, recessed trolling motor tray now!

Since the moment I started building the front deck panel, I've constantly had strength in mind because I'm a bigger guy. I don't want to have to baby the trolling motor pan because I'm afraid it might break. To help calm any fears, I riveted into place a section of 1-1/2" aluminum angle directly under the middle of the tray. Now, the weight will be spread across the plywood deck as well as the aluminum angle that's part of the bulkhead framework..

[super_dork]

Man that's looking sharp. So glad to see the tray getting put to good use. Now you make me want to do my upholstery and carpet. I got the stuff to rebuild the front seats, maybe I should give it a shot. I say that as I lay here with my newborn laying on me At 1am. Maybe I'll have to wait a bit longer to get started!

Looking good man! Can't wait to take her for a spin and go rip some lips!

[sokmace]

Man that's looking sharp. So glad to see the tray getting put to good use. Now you make me want to do my upholstery and carpet. I got the stuff to rebuild the front seats, maybe I should give it a shot. I say that as I lay here with my newborn laying on me At 1am. Maybe I'll have to wait a bit longer to get started!

Looking good man! Can't wait to take her for a spin and go rip some lips!

I'm hoping to have it in the water by the first weekend in May, getting close! I'll call you up for the first shakedown run when it's ready and we can hit Luces Bayou!

One of my last big projects was a 1972 Datsun 240z that I sold back in 2013. I happen to know how to sew a little, so I bought some material and gave it a go. Talk about a disaster. Fortunately, the seats weren't original - they were replacements from an Acura RSX that had been retrofitted by a previous owner. So it's not like I ruined some original seats or anything. You have to have the right equipment (walking foot sewing machine) to get the seams solid, especially if you're using vinyl. I imagine a bench seat from a boat would be MUCH easier than car seats since you won't have all the contours, but I imagine it would still be a big job.

As for the baby, I've worked on the boat twice with the baby strapped to my chest. Just put some eye & ear protection on her if you have to run the saw or weld or whatever

[CastingCall]

Carpet, pedal tray, rod tubes... it all looks great!
I might have missed it in a previous post, but will the rod butts be supported and enclosed? Were you adding a deck extension and lid behind the tubes for the rods?

[sokmace]

Carpet, pedal tray, rod tubes... it all looks great!
I might have missed it in a previous post, but will the rod butts be supported and enclosed? Were you adding a deck extension and lid behind the tubes for the rods?

Thanks, CC! I'm pleasantly surprised how well it's turning out. It's easy to get burned out on long-term projects sometimes, but having things turn out well certainly helps staying motivated.

Yes, I'm building a deck that will extend through the console:




The large blue rectangle will be the horizontal surface of extended deck. The smaller blue rectangle will be the vertical portion that will run flush with the aluminum box you see on the left. I'm going to use a combination of square aluminum tubing (vertical framing), 1-1/2" aluminum angle (horizontal framing), 3/4" plywood for the deck surface, and 1/2" plywood for the carpeted panels that will line the rod locker. The red lines indicate the hatch that will open up to access the rods. This hatch will be supported by two gas shocks to keep it open. Inside, I'll install some supports for the butt-end of the rods (green line). I'll probably cut these out of plywood and wrap in carpet. There will be one at the bottom for the bottom row of tubes, and then 2 on each side that run higher in the locker.

One thing I never thought to do was measure the width of the console. I originally wanted the rod locker hatch to be as wide as the PVC guides so it would be easier to add/remove rods. However, the console is too wide to do that, so I'll have to make the hatch narrower than I wanted. I shouldn't have any problems getting the rods in/out, but it may look a little odd - either the hatch will look too narrow, or it won't be symmetrical. It's a little hard to explain what I'm talking about, but this will make more sense once I get the deck extension installed prior to cutting the hatch out.

[sokmace]

It floats!



Ignore the junky seat, bare wood/aluminum hatch lids, and the mess under the trolling motor. Between being stuck waiting for carpet and generally being tired of working on the boat but not fishing, I decided to pull a late-night blitz on Saturday to get this thing on the water Sunday afternoon. I haven't gotten the big motor running yet, so my daughter and I trolled around for a bit. I didn't throw too many casts, maybe 2 dozen times. I spent most of the time helping her fish and doing function checks.

I got all the wiring sorted out, installed bilge/livewell pumps, console, steering, old switches (and they actually work now!), etc. etc. I put about 4 gallons of fuel mix in the tank, primed the bulb until it was hard, and turned the key. It started right up, but died within 5 seconds. After that, I checked spark and fuel . I know gas was getting to the carb because I originally had the hose clamp too loose and some gas came squirting out the carb. Tightened that up and the bulb would get hard and no more leaks.

So I don't know what the problem is yet, but I didn't chase down every possible issue either. We were happy just trolling around the docks.



Before I spend any more time on the motor, I'm going to do what I should have done a year ago when I got the boat and run a compression test. I think O'Reillys has them available for rent, so I'll run it by the store and test it so I can hopefully rule out the worst-case scenario. Fingers crossed. If compression is good, I think it has to be either the pump or something wrong with the carb. The motor turned over really strong, just wouldn't fire after that first time. Sounds like a fuel supply issue.

Question: is there an acceptable range for compression on an outboard like mine (1996 Force 40 ELPT)? From what I've read, it seems like ~120 is about right.

[Lil Mo]

It's looking good. Great work.

[FishinSkinny]

WELL DONE SIR

[StarcraftSS]

Nice looking resto. I love working on tin rigs.

The only potential "issue"(and I surely could be wrong)....is that the TM pedal tray looks a bit too deep imo. Looks like you'll have one foot standing in a bit of hole. Might want to experiment with shimming the pedal so you foot will be even with the deck.

[sokmace]

At the end of April, I promised my wife I'd take the month of May off from working on the boat. Next thing I know, it's August and the boat became just another shelf in the garage. I finally got back to work recently and have a lot of updates to show, but first...

Story Time:

I live in an annexed suburb of Houston (Kingwood), about 30 minutes northeast of downtown. As I'm sure you're aware, we got hit hard by Harvey the last week of August. All of our creeks, rivers, and bayous swelled pretty quickly due to receiving nearly 50 inches of rain over the course of 4-5 days. Kingwood is on the San Jacinto river, which feeds into into Lake Houston in the southeastern border of the suburb. The river began to go out of bounds on Sunday 8/27. Downtown Houston was also under water. A county judge held a press conference and made a statement describing how first responders were already inundated with rescue calls from residents trapped in their homes. He put out a plea for anyone with a boat to consider assisting with rescue efforts. I was sitting in the AC watching cable TV and playing on my phone while friends and neighbors were losing everything only a few miles away. I stayed up until 3AM that night getting my boat ready to serve. My motor troubles are well documented on this thread, and that night proved no different. I decided that even my trolling motor was better than doing nothing.

Here's some pictures from the first day of search & rescue in Kingwood, Texas:


^^^This is a main road, appropriately named West Lake Houston Parkway. It served as a public boat ramp that day. We were the third boat out on the first day.



For the first rescue, we paired up with some other locals and helped an elderly couple out of their home. The water had not risen to their house yet (pic of their driveway^), but you'll see later that they made the right call evacuating the first day.

I used to live in these apartments until I bought my house in 2012. I have coworkers and friends that still live there, but fortunately on the 2nd/3rd floors.



Texas Forever



Monster truck guy showed up at 5PM when I was loading up. This was probably the most practical vehicle of the day.



It got much worse on day 2, but let me explain something to ya'll before we get to that. This Force 40 motor has not been run any longer than a few seconds in 4-5 years. I've cranked it over countless times and it would never start. Only a handful of times was I able to get it to run, but it would die within 5 seconds. Even after repairing a number of things and replacing some fuel and ignition components, it would not run - ever. When we unloaded the boat and started to head to the first address that called for rescue, I didn't even bother trying the motor. I put the trolling motor down and started on my way. However, there were 2 big problems: the water was not always deep enough for the trolling motor and second, the current was far too powerful for a little 43 lb thrust TM to handle. So I said a quick prayer and began to go through the same 2-stroke startup sequence I had tried dozens of times before with no success. That motor started on the first turn of the key and ran like a CHAMP ALL DAY.

I don't believe in karma or fate or destiny. What I do believe is that God caused that motor to run for three days straight so I could be at the service of others. I'm thankful for that.

Day 2: The next day, things got much worse. Up river is Lake Conroe, which under normal conditions maintains a water release rate of about 2,700 cubic feet per second. With all the rain they were receiving in Conroe, the San Jacinto River Authority made a decision to open the dam at a record rate - nearly 80,000 cubic feet per second. Combining a wall of water with 30-40 inches of rain (up to that point) caused the river to rise exponentially. The flooding capped out between the 800-year and 1,000-year floodplain lines. The first day, my boat was dragging bottom in some areas. Day 2, you couldn't see stop signs at those same spots.



A nursing home put out a call for help after water rose into their first floor and forced the residents to hunker down on the second and third floors. They had 130 residents to evacuate, plus a handful of staff. They were well taken care of, but were beginning to run out of food and water and they had no running water either. We teamed up with about a dozen other boats manned by the coast guard, Texas state police, Game Wardens, HFD/HPD, the Cajun Navy, and a lot of ordinary people just like you and me. We carried about 130 residents down to the boats and led them to higher ground where they were transferred to shelters. It was heartbreaking to see.











There were Blackhawks, Apaches, and HH-65 Dolphins doing extractions from rooftops. C-130s and C-17s were flying overhead surveying the area.

Houston's Finest:



Day 3: The rain stopped, the sun came out, and the water levels began to go down. But much of Kingwood/Houston was still under water. We spent the day taxiing friends and strangers to their flooded homes so they could survey the damage and grab clothes and other essentials.

That motor never stopped running...





My lower unit was beat. My prop is absolutely ruined, the skeg is bent, and I have no idea where my trim tab went.

The aftermath:



These fins were bent backwards. Aside from dragging along shallow roads, hitting curbs/fire hydrants...I think the final blow was a submerged brick mail box I hit with at open throttle so I could get through a section with a pretty strong current. After that, full throttle would get me no better speed than as though I were idling.





Day 4: After three days of search & rescue, the water levels receded and allowed us to shift focus from saving people to saving homes from mold. I'm still in awe with how people responded to a disaster and stepped up to serve their neighbors. Kingwood alone had hundreds of homes flooded. We got to work mudding out homes, ripping out sheetrock, and moving water logged furniture to the curb. As of Saturday 9/9, only 10 days after beginning the clean up, nearly all of those homes have been gutted out, in large part to volunteers.



Note the water line on this 6 foot fence. This is next door to the home where we did our first rescue - the elderly couple I mentioned earlier.



I'm encouraged by this city, my church, my neighbors, and the work God can do with a junky old outboard. I think I understand why it's called a Force now.

Just wanted to share a more personal side of Harvey that you may not have seen in the media. Check back soon and I'll have an update on the build with new pics!

[Oldone]

WOW What a great thread