leak in my boat

I seem to have developed a small leak in my aluminum boat. What is the best way to find the problem and to fix it.
Please help.

1) put it in the water

2) look for leak

Sorry… couldn’t resist.

I don’t know what kind of boat you have, but one thing you might consider is taking a hose and filling the boat with a little water. Then look for water leaking through on the outside.

Caution: if you’re going to add lots of water, consider putting the trailer up on blocks (i.e., take the weight off the tires). A lot of water in the boat weighs, well, a lot, and could pop your tires if they have a light load rating.

The boat is an older 14ft Alumacraft, If it make ant difference.

Then this will work great. Take the battery box and the gas tank out, remove all your important stuff, and fill ‘er up! I suspect that it won’t take too long to find the leaky seam/rivet.

It’s much easier to fill the boat and find the leak. One thing to do first though is to eliminate ALL possiblity of the leak being a fitting such as a livewell pump, hose, plug hole, etc. I’ll bet half the boat leaks I’ve tracked down weren’t in the “hull” per se.

Good luck

Todd

Thanks Todd & Jason I will give it a shot.

After you put water in tap with rubber mallet to find all leaks ,water can seal them the tapping reveals all leaks. This is the way they are tested at the factory. good luck

I agree with all that say to fill the bottom of the boat with water. I have an Alumicraft that had a couple loose rivets and one missing rivet. I was not able to access the inside of the hull without cutting away a whole bunch of floatation foam that is under the floor which meant I could not replace the rivets. Instead I took the boat down to my place of business and had the missing rivet welded. The loose rivets I put some JB Weld on and they have held up just fine now for over 3 years.

Eyehunter

I’m just going to toss this out there since you mentioned it was a “Small” leak. You may see a small amount of water accumulate in aluminum boat hulls this time of year all due to condensation. With the water being cold (Sub 40) and the air in the 50’s and even low 60’s the inside of your boat will sweat like a beer can in August! You’d be surprised how much can accumulate during the day.

-J.

FYI on rivets I picked up some “sealed Pop Rivets” at Ace Hdwr when I had a problem. They look just like normal Pop Rivets but there is no hole in the end. I put these in from the outside of the hull and they worked fine.

Ferny.

find the leak next time you have the boat on the water and stick some Goop on the leaky rivit… so the same in 20 years when it leaks again somewhere else.

From the title, yes sometimes I need to take a leak while in the boat. Just whip it out and go.

Quote:

---

From the title, yes sometimes I need to take a leak while in the boat. Just whip it out and go.

---

You guys are just to much sometimes.

Once again, thanks to all for the great tips.

I love this site.

If you find it’s a rivet that’s missing/damaged and causing the leak, here is a great way to fix it on that boat.

When you find the leak, take that rivet out of the hull. I usually just drill it out. Then have a wire brush in your drill (one of those round ones) and rough up the immediate area. Then put a new rivet in there (they sell the rivet gun kits with rivets of different sizes pretty cheap these days) and make sure it’s tight. Then, have some flame handy so you can melt the Cabela’s Aluminum boat patch stuff, seen HERE. This stuff really works well at sealing up the immediate area. Just keep dabbing it on there until it’s not bubbling anymore, and you can see no part of the rivet. You rough the area up so that this stuff will stick better. I’ve done this on 3 or 4 boats, and NONE of them ever leaked again from the replaced rivet. We even drilled out a bunch of rivets that were weak on my buddys boat, and it even made that one stronger. If you need any help or guidance with this, don’t hesitate to get ahold of me.