My "Sunday" project. 12' V-hull makeover-LOTS of PICS

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Well I'm not finished yet but I've got a lot of pictures. Here is my boat. Her name is Sunday. That's because I've spent so many of them working on her that I've lost count.

I started with a 1984 12' Valco riveted V-hull. I like to fish for trout and bass, and it came with two downriggers (one electric!), a transom mount trolling motor, and a 15 HP Evinrude. After fixing 2 small leaking rivets I fished out of it 10 or 12 times before deciding to rip the whole thing apart and rebuild.

Here are some "before" shots:

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more "before"

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Here's everything ripped out, with the flotation foam visible. I will actually put more foam in along the way.

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Decided to paint the interior. Here is a prep shot.

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I used 1 1/2" x 1/8" thick aluminum angle for all deck and floor supports. You can also see the new grey paint on the interior. It's the wrinkly stuff from Ace. It's designed to stick to plastic yard furniture and put up with the flexing so it should be good for the boat. The can says it can be used on metal, plastic, wood, etc. We'll see.

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another view...

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the floor structure.

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Floor structure close up

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Rear bench with LED lights installed.

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Triangular front deck support

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This is how the front of the triangle is supported. I cut the aluminum parts at an angle to match the hull and glued on a chunk of tire rubber so there would be no direct aluminum framing to hull contact at that particular point. I figured a hole would develop there if i just left it metal to metal. This photo is looking up at the underside of the framing.

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More shots to come.

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Lighting is very important for me. I go out before dark quite often and if I go out in the afternoon it's usually dark by the time I get home. I put 13 of these little LED livewell lights throughout the boat, as well as 3 larger ones under the bow and both sides of the transom. It was a lot of wiring, but worth it to me. All connections are water/weather proofed.

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Under Bow light and front navigation light mount.

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Here's another view. I decided on a post style nav light for the front so as not to interfere with a bow mounted trolling motor.

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Here is one of the rear lights along with the rear nav light mount.

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the other rear light...

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I wired two trolling motor plugs, one in the front and one in the rear. Here is the rear one.

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Here is the front trolling motor plug. It is basically hidden inside what will be the front storage compartment. I figure it won't be long before i wind up getting a bow mounted foot controlled unit, so i added this plug. Both plugs are wired to the same battery.

[jhoffman]

Dont forget two cigarette adapters.. One front one rear, some lights take them.

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I also wired up a bilge pump. The wiring is glued down with "Marine Goop"

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I added a 12 volt recepticle, hidden inside the storage compartment, wired to a switch on the main panel. It will be useful for cell phone charging, portable GPS, hand held spotlight, or, most importantly, my 12 volt aerated live bait bucket. I fish catch and release most of the time, and the boat is too small for a livewell, but i can make one out of a cooler and plug the aerator pump in here if I ever want to.

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Here you can see how I mounted the battery boxes. There are three boxes in the boat. Two are mounted in the middle bench and are for batteries. The third is mounted in the rear bench and will be used to hold a few Plano Boxes. The ones for the batteries are mounted on top of an aluminum angle 'box' which is bolted through the bench and reinforced from the outside of the bench with a piece of flat stock. The "dry storage" one in the rear bench is mounted a little lighter duty since it will not be carrying a heavy battery.

Here is one of the middle bench battery boxes showing the heavier duty mount.

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here is the reinforcement plate.

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Here is my switch panel. The 6 switches control the bilge, deck lights, 12 volt recepticle, navigation lights, downrigger, and depthfinder. This panel is wired to the nearby battery. The other battery on the other side is for the trolling motor only. All trolling motor wiring is on the opposite side of the boat from the electronics to minimize interference.