Sealing leaks on a painted aluminum hull

[BOAH]

I am a new boat owner of an old boat. It's a '72 Starcraft with a painted aluminum hull. I took it out for the first time and noticed numerous leaks when I took it out of the water. I've been reading as much as I can about aluminum repair. It has a floor in it that I can't remove so I can only access the hull from the outside. I'd love to strip the entire hull and do it right, but I don't want to go through that right now. I'm thinking about using the 3M 5200 sealant on the leaks that I know of and along all of the seams.

Any general recommendations and or surface preperation recommendations?

Thanks for your help!

 

[prohawk]

Re: Sealing leaks on a painted aluminum hull

I presume the hull is riveted? Tough call on an outside fix! We used JB weld on a bass pro 16 hull but it jast had holes in the front end from coon ****. 22 holes were ate through it. Then we used Aluminum jell on the outside and fiberglass matting on the inside. No leaks now.

 

[Huron Angler]

Re: Sealing leaks on a painted aluminum hull

This stuff is designed to seal aluminum boats. Just strip the paint off the rivets and seams...then brush two light coats on...and then you can repaint over it if you want.

It has a bit of zinc chromate in the epoxy so that it adheres to the aluminum. It is flexible so it will not crack or chip with hull movement.

It would be best to do this on the interior...but if you aren't interested in doing the whole deck it can be used exterior too.

Is your deck soft at all? A '72 would need a new deck normally.

We'd love to see some photos of your starcraft over in that forum if ya got some

 

[timfives]

Re: Sealing leaks on a painted aluminum hull

I am a new boat owner of an old boat. It's a '72 Starcraft with a painted aluminum hull. I took it out for the first time and noticed numerous leaks when I took it out of the water. I've been reading as much as I can about aluminum repair. It has a floor in it that I can't remove so I can only access the hull from the outside. I'd love to strip the entire hull and do it right, but I don't want to go through that right now. I'm thinking about using the 3M 5200 sealant on the leaks that I know of and along all of the seams.

Any general recommendations and or surface preperation recommendations?

Thanks for your help!

From the outside, i'm not sure what the best approach would be. if you were to rip up the floors, you could use Gluvit to seal all the seams and rivets. This seems to be optimum solution. I've used JB Weld to fix some holes in the transom along with 5200.

How much water does she take on?

T

 

[ezmobee]

Re: Sealing leaks on a painted aluminum hull

I had some lose rivets on my last Starcraft and they did leak a good bit. I slathered some JB Weld around them and it completely solved the issue.

 

[BOAH]

Re: Sealing leaks on a painted aluminum hull

Yeah, I'll have to put up some pics. But after I looked at the Starcrafts that are already posted, I have to admit that I'm intimidated! I didn't even know that mine possibly looked like that in a previous life! LOL

Most of the leaks don't appear to be coming from specific rivets but from the seams along the keels? Not sure if that's the right term. (can you tell that I'm a newbie?) There's a couple of spots on the keels that it looks like someone actually drilled a couple of 1/8" holes into it???

I don't know how much it actually leaked but I took it out for about two hours and I'll just say that it seemed like a drained a lot of water out of it when I was finished.

Thanks again for all of your help!

 

[bananaboater]

Re: Sealing leaks on a painted aluminum hull

Yeah, I'll have to put up some pics. But after I looked at the Starcrafts that are already posted, I have to admit that I'm intimidated! I didn't even know that mine possibly looked like that in a previous life! LOL

Most of the leaks don't appear to be coming from specific rivets but from the seams along the keels? Not sure if that's the right term. (can you tell that I'm a newbie?) There's a couple of spots on the keels that it looks like someone actually drilled a couple of 1/8" holes into it???

I don't know how much it actually leaked but I took it out for about two hours and I'll just say that it seemed like a drained a lot of water out of it when I was finished.

Thanks again for all of your help!

Boah, No need to be intimidated, we all started as newbies. Some of us tear everything apart and some like me do a limited approach and others cosmetic. No prejudice here.

Most of us have found waterlogged floatation beneath the deck and if safety is of concern you, it might need to be investigated, not trying to scare you just inform.

Welcome to the site, I think you will like your boat. Looking forward to seeing pics.