# 1648 Grizzly Jet build



## catmansteve (Jun 20, 2013)

Howdy folks. Since this is my first major boat rebuild, I figured I'd make a record of it here.

Boat is a 2000 Tracker Grizzly 1648. It was already setup when I bought it, but after fishing it for a couple months I found a number of things I wasn't happy with, so I've decided to tear it down to the bare hull and start over.









If you hadn't guessed by now, the boat was setup mainly for catfishing. I do a lot of catfishing myself, but I also like the convenience of raised casting decks and the storage space they provide underneath. My biggest complaint was the livewell in the middle is a pain in the a$$ to get around, so I'm going to move it to the front and build a deck around it.

The back end will be pretty straightforward; this boat has boxes on either side as opposed to a rear bench, with room for the gas tank and starting battery underneath, so I'll just build a hinged lid to cover the space between the boxes and a cover for the front and call it good. All of the framing and decking will be aluminum.

I'm not a fan of carpet, so the entire interior will get some type of rubberized or non-skid paint, haven't decided on what to use so I'm open to suggestions. I'm seriously considering painting the outside of the hull as well, the old green is looking tired and I think a dark navy gloss would look pretty sharp with a light grey painted interior.

The boat is powered by a 97 Mercury 30 Jet (40/28) with stick steering; I've been playing around with it since I've had it, and I'm still not satisfied with the performance. The fastest I've gotten it was 27 mph riding solo, averages around 25, but throw an extra person or two in and it barely wants to get on plane and tops out about 20-22mph. I have an 87 Johnson 40/28 I had on my old boat just sitting in the garage, so at some point I'll switch the motors to see which does better.


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## catmansteve (Jun 20, 2013)

Current layout


Future layout


And the current state of progress...



Carpet is all gone, half of the floor sheeting is out, and I cut that goofy little step out of the front. It was full of foam, I'm removing all the poured in foam from the boat except the back pods, and replacing with 1.5" xps sheet foam. Two sheets should more than make up for that gob of water-logged crap I took out of the front. Once I get the rest of the floor and foam out, I'm gonna pressure wash the inside and spray a coat of primer for good measure. More to come


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## bulldog (Jun 20, 2013)

Nice!! This is going to be a good one!!


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## catmansteve (Jun 20, 2013)

Thanks man! I'm definitely going to steal a lot of yours and Brine's ideas on this one :LOL2: Love the new boat by the way! A Riverpro was my dream boat until I saw yours, now I'm not so sure, I bet that sbc sounds good...


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## bulldog (Jun 20, 2013)

Steal away. I stole most of the build plans from Brine. If you look closely in some of the build pics you can actually see pics of Brine's build that I printed out to use as reference. He caught me red handed. That is what this site is here for. Take an idea from person A and mix it with and idea from person B, put your own spin on it and bam, you have a boat built for your specific needs. 

If there was one thing I would have changed with my flat bottom build it would have been to buy an air powered rivet gun. I had over 1000 rivets all done by hand. Although it was a great forearm workout, it sucked. 

Keep the pics coming!


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## catmansteve (Jun 21, 2013)

Got the rest of the floor up, still working on getting that stupid pour-in foam out. So far no corrosion inside the hull other than where the PO used regular self-tapping screws instead of stainless. I think I'm going to rattle-can spray the inside with self-etching primer the inside of the hull and the stringers before I put the floor back down; Tracker must paint these boats after the foam and floor is in because everything underneath is just bare aluminum.





Also took a look behind the console at the wiring, wow... Might could need to do something about that mess!








Original plan was rip out all the wiring and start over with this:




But thanks to Bulldog a much simpler solution should be arriving in the mail any day now! Heck of a guy that Bulldog is! Stay tuned


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## catmansteve (Jun 26, 2013)

Progress has slowed down the past few days, the tow rig wound up in the body shop Monday, but I've gotten all the foam out of the floor and the bow. For anyone that's never removed pour in flotation foam, it's a pain in the butt; the best way I came up with was using a big putty knife and a hammer to chisel most of it out, then go over it with a power washer to take off the part that sticks to the hull. Still need to powerwash the rest of the hull, then a little spray primer and I can put the new sheet foam in and put the floor back in.


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## BigTerp (Jun 28, 2013)

Looking good man!! Looking forward to see how this one turns out. I like that your opening up the floor more. Such a pain having to step over something like a bench seat or livewell.


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## willsbarbour (Jun 29, 2013)

Looks good. Cant wait to see the final product.


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## catmansteve (Jun 30, 2013)

Thanks guys, I plan on keeping this boat for the long haul, so I'm going to do it right and be done with it. The livewell in the middle was ok until you set the seats up side by side to catfish off the rack while anchored, then there was no way to get to the front without climbing over everything.

Finished powerwashing. Gonna get a couple spots welded, then it's primer, foam and floor.




Found a little pitting where the foam was, glad I decided to pull the floor up and redo it


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## BDS05 (Jul 1, 2013)

Since you're starting from zero, can I recommend spending the extra cash on hydroturf versus carpet?


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## catmansteve (Jul 2, 2013)

[url=https://www.tinboats.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=320813#p320813 said:


> BDS05 » Yesterday, 17:30[/url]"]Since you're starting from zero, can I recommend spending the extra cash on hydroturf versus carpet?


After my last boat I vowed to never have another boat with carpet. When I bought this one I knew the carpet would be the first thing to go. I'm going to paint the aluminum floor light grey and apply some kind of nonskid coating, either the rubber chips you mix in with the paint or a sprinkling of fine sand on top the wet paint.


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## catmansteve (Jul 11, 2013)

Slow going lately, but I'm making progress. Got all the bare aluminum under the floor cleaned, sanded, and primed. I ran out of the nice green primer and the stuff the only other stuff I could find was white, I think I'm going to get more green and go back over it so it all matches, I know it won't be seen but it bothers me haha. I need more for the rest of the boat anyway. 

Also got most of the foam cut to fit. I'm putting foam up the sides too so I can use coil stock for the side panels, hopefully the foam will give it enough support that it won't ripple like crazy.





The weldor is supposed to be ready to fix the holes Monday, by then I'll have everything ready to put the floor back in and get this show on the road.


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## catmansteve (Jul 29, 2013)

Finally got the boat back from the welder, 2 weeks later, and I'm far from satisfied. If anyone can tell me what I need for an affordable aluminum MIG setup I'm all ears. 

Anyway, primed the welded spots, put the foam in, and riveted the floor back down. Mocked up the controls, livewell, and driver's seat, I think it's going to work pretty well.












I'm going to end up with more room for storage under the front deck than I thought I would, I may be able to put both batteries and the gas tank up there. I'm going to float test it in the neighbors pond with all the heavy stuff where I think it should be, as long as it doesn't wind up too nose heavy then the plan is max weight to the front.


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