Hi. Just bought my 1st boat. A 14ft aluminum with a 1958,18 hp motor. It runs great. Anyways I was thinking about puting a floor in it. There are 3 benches, is it possible to take out 1 or 2 of them, or will this weeken the hull too much? Also what kind of support do I need under the floor? Thanks.
Martin,I wouldn't. You can, however, probably cut out a passageway though the middle of them as long as you tie the two halves together at the bottom (floor).
i'm going to assume this is a jon boat! martin the benches support the sides of the boat, they also provide a space for the floatation foam. so it wouldnt be advisable to remove the benches.
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Re: Installing floor in aluminum boat
Some 15 years ago, my son put a floor in an old Starcraft V-hull aluminum boat with no problems. We still use the boat with the same floor, although the carpet has had to be replaced two or three times.The boat is 75 miles away so I can't look at it right now, but...., I seem to remember that he installed some "U" channels across the bottom area of the boat. There was some sort of reinforcement in that area, but I don't remember just how it was made. He then screwed 5/8" treated plywood to those channels. He cut and placed pieces of styrofoam under the plywood before screwing it down. He installed three seat pedestal sockets and used three seats for the main seating. One of the original bench seats was left in at the bow. It is nothing but a board that bolts into a clamp riveted to the sides of the boat. It has been used a lot of hours with both a 10 HP and a 25 HP tiller steer motor. Obviously what worked for us, may or may not work for you. It seems like every boat is built just a little different. It definitely made the boat a whole lot easier to move around in. Charles
I haven't done this but I have heard that some people like putting in this infopop.com ]Starboard[/url] lumber material as a floor in aluminum boats. It's supposed to last a lot longer than plywood and you don't have to worry about treating it etc... If done right it helps make aluminum boats quieter too.- bayman
We had an old 16 ft aluminum boat with three bench seats in it, which housed the foam flotation blocks. I used 3/4 " plywood to make fitted floor panels between the seats. The edges oof the floor were cut so that they rested on the ribs that ran across the inside botoom of the boat. To give support to the middle of the floor I pop riveted "L" shaped clips to the aluminum upright faces of the seat supports. They were positioned so the underside of the plywood was supported by the lower part of the "L". It's a bit hard to explain, hope you get the idea. If you want to e mail me I can reply with a bit of a drawing of what I did. It worked really well and you can take the floor out easily if you want to clean it out. Good luck gbryson@autobahn.mb.ca
Installing floor in aluminum boat
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