leaky john boat?

[Hillbilly910]

Any ideas on patching one? Its leaking around the rivets, mostly around the seats. Ive tried some basic things, but have yet to completely fix it.
Only restriction required is to keep the weight down, cant alter the weight of the boat by any large amount.

Any thoughts?

HB

[cityboy]

sandblast then use liquid membrane , it turns into rubber and is tight weight.

[KrappieKrane]

Hillbilly, have you tried to brad the rivets with two ball pean hammers? Grab a buddy and have them hold a flat side of the hammer on a rivet and the other person will brad the rivet with the rounded side of the other hammer. You also could epoxy or jb weld the outside of each rivet to further seal the rivets. I had to do the same thing to a really old boat and now she's watertight. Hope this helps and keep us informed on how it turns out. Good luck. Rollcaster..................................

[thehines]

This stuff works great. I found a old jon boat half filled with mud. cleaned it out used this on all of the leaky rivets and it held water out fine.

Also heard of people using a spray in bed liner after sealing the rivets
Cabela's Aluminum Boat Patch

[fowlmood77]

What Rollcaster said

[beenfishin?]

This stuff works great. I found a old jon boat half filled with mud. cleaned it out used this on all of the leaky rivets and it held water out fine.

Also heard of people using a spray in bed liner after sealing the rivets
Cabela's Aluminum Boat Patch

Good stuff right there! I use it on mine. Just a warning though, don't try to use it on anything other than rivets. If you get a crack in a weld or something like that, this stuff won't hold for long. But again, works great on the rivets! I would recomend tightening the rivets with two hammers as was suggested and then use this stuff on the rivet heads, outside of boat. I did one two years ago and it is still watertight.

[CrappieKillerJigs]

what everyone else said works just fine but takes some time...if you dont want to spend a day or 2 sealing each one just buy some spray on bed liner and coat the inside and outside of the boat and you will be good to go...it turns into rubber and will be water tight and quite down the water slap on the boat also...did it to one last year and i have beat that boat up pretty bad but it dont leak

[Hillbilly910]

Thanks for the replies. I had heard about the bed coating, but was told it was heavy, and would alter the weight of the boat. And since this boat isnt on a trailer, rather loaded into the back of my track, i have to keep the weight down.

I, however, always wondered if it would work on the under side of the boat, so i could just cover the rivets, and not the entire boat. will give that a try.

HB

[OMEN]

Hillbilly,

We use mobile home sealant. The stuff that the seal the roof of mobile homes with that have the tin roofs. It works great and does not add too much weight. I have a 1957 Riveted Jon Boat and do this once a year and have never had a leak. Also have a 1968 Riveted V botom and do the same thing with it once a year and never had a leak. It holds up very well when dragging it in and out of a truck or over sand bars with rock and gravel.

[atfish]

I used a marine epoxy, GLOVIT, and put about 4 coats on the outside rivet heads and it worked great. GLOVIT is a flexible marine epoxy and flexes with the movement of the boat. The epoxy is practically clear therefore the boat won't look like a mess of polka dots. By the way I got this idea from the guys here on crappie.com. GREAT bunch of folks here that are more than happy to help out.