Alum. boats

[cajun555]

I had a friend that had an alum. boat and the rivets were loosenimg up. He took it some place to have it checked out. Ended up that he had rewired boat an cut corners an used boat hull as a ground. He has since did it correctly and this corrected his problem with the rivets. Any truth to this?

 

[FlyBoyMark]

Re: Alum. boats

HUH?!?!?!?! Only if the rivets are eroded by electrolsis...

 

[cuzner]

Re: Alum. boats

Ya, if he kept the boat in the water.Grounding is very important. The way he had it set up,it would have grounded to the water.The rivets must of been made of a more conductive metal than the hull.Same theory as the zinc Tabs on a sterndrive. Always make sure you properly wire anything on your boat,same will happen to your sterndrive if you don't. It can be a pain working under your dash or engine compartment,but it may save alot of greif later.<br /><br /> Jim

 

[Bass Runner]

Re: Alum. boats

It's kind of hard not to ground to the boat if you mount a motor on it, the motor is bolted to the boat and is grounded so go fiqure.

 

[Bearcamp]

Re: Alum. boats

Why not just ground everything right to the battery? Not to the boat.

 

[cajun555]

Re: Alum. boats

Thats the way it was explained to me. I just recently rewired my boat and ran a ground to all accs. B/R is right the motor is grounded and it is bolted to boat so in essence the hull is grounded but not carring no load.

 

[sundog]

Re: Alum. boats

Ive seen an alum boat sink at the dock and when brought up, had a wrench shaped hole in the bottem (they had dropped a wrench in the bilge and forgotten about it). if boat is kept in the water, must either have whole boat grounded to battery (most common for alum), or trail a sacrificial zinc over the side when not running. some folk will actually drill a hole in the transom below water line and attatch a bolt thru zinc, then run grounds to the bolt. motor should be grounded to batt or zinc or your asking for more of the same.

 

[davejnz]

Re: Alum. boats

If the rivets aren't in too bad of shape,Gluvit is an excellent product to seal them.Many on the alum boat forum use this for that.

 

[cuzner]

Re: Alum. boats

The way it was explained to me was you can have problems not only from your boat,but also from the water in the area around where you dock.I watched a 14 ft aluminum,with a 10hp motor and no battery, start to disolve in 3 years.he docked against a steel breakwall in a creek,and was getting enough current from the house attatched to cause it.Your boat does ground through the motor, then to the battery it has zincs on the sterndrive to prevent corrosion on aluminum (sterndrive),the closest thing to zinc on an alum. boat must be the rivets.Something will corrode,all we can do is reduce it by wiring properly, and replace our anodes when they coroded.<br /><br /> Jim