# 1987 tracker tx17 rebuild



## Jbower (Jan 15, 2018)

Well I ended up buying a 87 tracker tx-17 last fall that was pretty well taken care of. It was all factory with a 1988 mariner 45hp on it. Actually fished a few tournaments in it at the end of the season. I had added a helix 5 to the bow and a motorguide 75lb trolling motor. Well I decided to tear into this winter as I am a marine tech by trade, self employed so to speak, anyways I started ripping up deck,floor and carpet and pulled out all the waterlogged foam and started on the front deck lay out. I am going to have 7ft of front deck, a center rod locker that should hold pretty close to 8 foot rods, 2 large storage hatches that hold over 10 3700 boxes and 2 smaller ones that will probably hold soft plastics. The main floor is complete, the rear is gone threw and almost finished being carpeted, the deck framing is done and painted and the deck is cut to fit and painted all I need to do is cut out the hatches and troll n tray. I am lowering the seat bases 4 inches to be a little more comfortable and not feel like I am driving a tri axle dump truck. I also ordered a new console out of a g3 boat which should be in in a few days. Here are a few pics, sorry I don’t have a lot my phone had shattered a few weeks ago and had to get a new phone and believe it or not I was out of cloud storage smh.

















Last pic is the Console I have coming 


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## water bouy (Jan 17, 2018)

Nice. Looks like it has a 115 Erude. How long will the wood last.


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## TheLastCall (Jan 17, 2018)

Nice boat. I really like the huge front casting deck.

Water bouy - it depends on a lot of factors. What type of wood. How was it sealed/treated. Will it be sitting in water. Carpet vs vinyl.where the boat is stored.

Wood is surprisingly durable. 

My boat for example has marine grade plywood covered by vinyl as seats. The boat sat outside in the water 6 months out of the year the rest of the time it was in a garage. The plywood hasn’t been replaced in 17 years and it just now starting to weaken. 

The frame on the bottom might not last as long. Wood is cheap and easy to replace.


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## Jbower (Jan 17, 2018)

Thanks guys. Motors just hanging on there for now. Not sure what I am going to run on it yet. The woods all coated with 2 coats of oil based paint now and also boat never stays outside. I have just under 300 boats inside stored so during the summer I have plenty of room for to sit. 


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## water bouy (Jan 17, 2018)

300 ?


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## Jbower (Jan 17, 2018)

Yes 300 lol. 6 buildings. 4 of which are 64x160 1 is 60x220 and 1 40x80. All are full 
I personally winterize about 95% of them 


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## water bouy (Jan 17, 2018)

Any leftovers taking up valuable space ?


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## Jbower (Jan 17, 2018)

Not at all. Usually see a few pontoons in the spring that people want to get rid of but that’s about it 


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## Jbower (Jan 18, 2018)

New console showed up late yesterday afternoon and I’m also meeting up with a guy for some seats tomorrow. So I will update with some pics later on. I got the deck hatches all cut out last night. My goal this weekend is to get the front deck pretty much completely done and carpeted. That will leave me with some wiring and finishing up the rod locker also need to figure out what electronics I am going to run. I have a helix 5 but I’m really thinking about selling that and running a couple of Garmin 7s 


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## Jbower (Jan 18, 2018)

Well i was at the shop today rebuilding a etec 225 when a buddy came by and was bored so he pretty much finished up my deck and laid the carpet and mounted the console. I need 1 more cost of paint on the hatches and carpet them. I’ll do that this weekend and hopefully just have dash and trolling motor wiring left.









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## kalninm (Jan 19, 2018)

Awesome you're making great progress!!!, watching yours now as well


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## Jbower (Jan 19, 2018)

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## Jbower (Jan 20, 2018)

Started working on the dash today a little while I’m waiting on hinges and hatch pulls to show up. Still have a ton of work left but I’m on the downhill side






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## kalninm (Jan 22, 2018)

Looks awesome! I just had to order more foam tonight for the back (which was painful) and tomorrow getting more foam sheets and plywood to start cutting the sub-floor out over the next couple days.


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## Jbower (Jan 22, 2018)

It’s slowly coming together. I need to swap out that steering wheel it looked grey when it wasn’t close to the boat but it definitely looks tan in the boat. I ran a bunch of wiring tonight,mounted my control box, ran throttle cable to hot foot, ran transducer wire, finished mounting console. I think I am going to be switching motors to a 75 possibly. And I’m going to go with a 6 inch jack plate. I am trying my hardest not to spend to much money on this project as I don’t want to be upside down in it. But I don’t have much in carpet nor wood. paint that I used for the outside is the same I used on the wood, console was only 175$. My end goal is to be able to go places that the guys I fish in tournaments with can’t. Shallow waters and creeks and my lake has a loch that goes to 7 other lakes, a normal sized bass boat won’t get threw it. Anyways I’m going to end up with more time than money in it and in a few years I’ll either decide to keep it or sell it. 
Kalninm it sounds like your doing a great job. Just take your time and everything will turn out great. I on the other hand am kind of rushing mine mainly because I have a few pontoon redecks scheduled to come on the shop and won’t have the room for my boat in the shop while those are going on. But don’t get me wrong I’m doing everything as right as I should but somethings that I’m rushing now will need attended to more towards spring 


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## Jim (Jan 23, 2018)

Love the pictures on the walls! 


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## Jbower (Jan 23, 2018)

Jim said:


> Love the pictures on the walls!
> 
> Haha seems every time i order a jet ski engine I receive one of those. Not sure I could have to many
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## Jbower (Jan 28, 2018)

Well I finished up a lot of odds and ends today. I’d guess that I have just a few weekends left on it. I need to do front hatch hinges, put trolling motor back on and finish wiring switches in dash. I am waiting on a jack plate and steering wheel. Other than that stuff it’s paint the bottom and do my trailer lights. I just became tournament director of a trail in my area and finished my schedule. First tournament is April 14th and I’m guessing we will have ice covered lakes until end of February maybe 2nd week of March. 


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## kalninm (Jan 29, 2018)

Nice! I didn't get much done this weekend, went ice fishing instead.....which sucks lol Where are you a tournament director?


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## Jbower (Jan 29, 2018)

kalninm said:


> Nice! I didn't get much done this weekend, went ice fishing instead.....which sucks lol Where are you a tournament director?


Anglers dream. It’s based in Indiana but there is a few divisions in Michigan and Illinois. Should be a ton of fun. I’m just really hoping to qualify for the TOC it’s at lake chickamauga first week of October 


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## kalninm (Jan 30, 2018)

Thats pretty cool! We have a million clubs up here in the finger lakes region so we have our choice pretty much every weekend but there's only really one big circut thats associated with B.A.S.S. and can get you a bid to the B.A.S.S. team championship, they average 40-60 boats per tournament and the rest up here are usually between 15-30


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## Jbower (Feb 8, 2018)

Well I haven’t gotten much work done on the boat. I have only mounted the jackplate and started painting the engine cover. It still needs clear coated and the rest of the motor needs painted but we are getting closer.










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## Jbower (Feb 9, 2018)

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## dirty dave (Feb 11, 2018)

What made you go with a jack plate? And any reason for cmc over a other brand? 

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## Jbower (Feb 11, 2018)

dirty dave said:


> What made you go with a jack plate? And any reason for cmc over a other brand?
> 
> Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G890A using Tapatalk


I went with it because I fish tournaments and obviously don’t have the fastest boat on the lake. So I am going to make it so that I can get in places the other boats can’t. Example I live on a lake that has 2 other mainly connected. But if o travel down a winding channel for a few miles I go threw a couple of tubes that go under roads and threw a loch system that them fiberglass boats can get threw, then that puts me on 7+ more lakes. So pretty much to get the engine up as high as I can and also maybe a little better performance I’m guessing. I looked at a bunch of them Vance ones on eBay looked to be a good deal but I don’t think they allowed as much lift as the cmc. I am currently redoing a pontoon for a friend and we installed a Vance 12 inch on it and I believe it has about an inch less travel as the cmc. Plus I got a good discount on it threw my parts supplier 


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## Jbower (Feb 19, 2018)

I am proud to say that I am nearing the end. It’s been a fun time that’s for sure. I have to carpet the rod locker,screw down the recessed trolling motor tray, and silicone and tighten a thru Hull livewell pump. Besides putting new batteries in and painting the bottom of the boat it is done [emoji4]




I’ll do a post once it’s all vacuumed and fish ready with more pics. 


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## kalninm (Feb 20, 2018)

That came out great!!! Looks amazing dude, what motor did you end up putting on the back? You'll have to report back with some speeds you get and such


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## Jbower (Feb 20, 2018)

The motor that is on it currently is a 90. I’m not sure if it’s going to stay on or not. I looked up and seen a lot of these boats are rated for 80. My tag says 90 and I seen a post somewhere else that another one was rated for 90. Either way if you go off coast guard you calculations it’s fine. Anyways I have a few laying around including a 115 and a 75. Also have a 200 but that’s a little to big [emoji23]. I took the boat home today and put it on the garage so that I can get back to work on paying projects and not have to move it around all the time.







Trailer work and painting the bottom of the boat will happen sometime after Memorial Day after all of my boats are in the water
I’m on the hunt for 1 or maybe 2 helix 7s or 10s. But boy are they salty 

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## Jbower (Mar 17, 2018)

Just a few updates. I ran the boat to test out the motor with the jackplate. 0-30mph was absolutely insane but topped out at 43. Also motor was a little to high. I lowered the motor a 1/2 inch and haven’t been back out to test. Also updated my electronics to garmins. I am running the new echomap plus console and bow also still running humminbird helix next to the garmin on the dash. I figure I can use it for back up imaging. Anyway when it finally warms up a bit in a few weeks I’ll be doing more testing I don’t think I’ll have a problem hitting 50mph though


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## Hanr3 (Mar 17, 2018)

Nice update. Hopefully that 1/2" works out.


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## Jbower (Apr 23, 2018)

No real updates besides i fished my first tourney out of it and it worked great. Rod locker comfortably holds 16 rods and room for more. I haven’t got my my prop situation finished yet. It’ll run 42mph with a 18p prop at 6200 rpms which is over revving it and I hit 45mph with a 24p at 4800rpms. I’m just trying to find a deal on a 21p to try out without spending 400$ 


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## 502ss (Jun 11, 2018)

nice build, mind posting some pics of your storage compartments and rod locker? looking for as many ideas as possible before i start on my boat, thanks.


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## Jbower (Jun 14, 2018)

I’ll try to take some tomorrow. Boat has worked flawlessly. I’ve fished out of it a ton and fished 3 tournaments with it but now it will be up for sale. I ended up coming across a fiberglass boat that was pretty much a bare hull and after two long nights fished a tournament with it on Sunday. 


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