Outside of redoing some rivots, what can I do to fix a small leak on a rivot? After a 6 hours of fishing, I’m taking on about 1.5 gals of water. Not a huge deal, but if I ever want to park it overnight on the water, I may be screwed.
I know you can buy some marine grade caulk type stuff. Just doing a google search for marine caulk I found this….
http://www.jamestowndistributors.com/userportal/siteMap.do?action=map2&catId=32
At the bottom it gives you some tips… Otherwise just look at some other google search results.
Great info, but I have the same problem – a rivet that leaks. The center of the rivet is missing, knocked out, whatever. Should I remove the rivet entirely ar just seal the small hole in the center with these caulks?
I took my old leaky lund to a aluminium welder and he actually took the rivet out and welded the hole back shut. He did a really good job and it looked like a rivet when he was done. I found the hardest part was finding the leaky rivet.
Have you ever thought of using the JB Weld stuff on that rivet? 
I’ve used it and was amazed how well it did what need to be done. 
Is the leak on the center keel? My Alumacraft leaks a little on the center keel, took it to a aluminum boat repair guy and he told me that he would have drill out all the rivets from the leak up to the bow and then re-do them all. Very spendy $$$. A $3 tube of silicone caulk works great, but you will have to redo it every couple of years, on the down side the boat will be 300 years old before I spend more on caulk than the repair 
.
+1 on the caulk. -2 on the welded solution. Aluminum is dirty stuff and prone to leak to begin with after welding. We make aluminum diesel fuel tanks for the military. We even have to leak test the areas of the tank where the baffles are welded. And we find leaks with no visible burn through. I can only imagine how difficult it would be to try to weld a leak proof seam on an old painted boat hull. And even if you are succesfull chances are it would crack from stress long before the caulk would fail. For what it’s worth.
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Not a huge deal, but if I ever want to park it overnight on the water, I may be screwed.
Not to side-step the leak issue, but have you thought about replacing your bilge pump with an automatic one, or adding a float switch to yours to make it automatic? I added the float to my Lund, wired it directly to the battery (with a fuse), so no change in switches or other wiring.
HRG
Best fix hands down is “PRO POXY 20” by hercules. Have fixed multiple missing rivets, hole, skeg and even had to adjust the windshield on my old boat due to backing it into the garage and ripping the screws out of the fiberglass. 
It is a two part and you can form it to whatever shape you want. Once you are done and maybe let’s say you got a little carried away you can sand it down and then paint it. This stuff dries in 20 minutes and is rock solid. On my windshield I filled the existing holes and drilled and tapped the propoxy and it worked wonders.
Oh, for the skeg it really makes your motor look like new (especially after paint)….that is until you hit something and then it will chip off.
Hope this helps ya. 
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Not a huge deal, but if I ever want to park it overnight on the water, I may be screwed.
Not to side-step the leak issue, but have you thought about replacing your bilge pump with an automatic one, or adding a float switch to yours to make it automatic? I added the float to my Lund, wired it directly to the battery (with a fuse), so no change in switches or other wiring.
HRG
I wish I had a boat with a bilge pump. 14 foot flat for me.
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Best fix hands down is “PRO POXY 20” by hercules. Have fixed multiple missing rivets, hole, skeg and even had to adjust the windshield on my old boat due to backing it into the garage and ripping the screws out of the fiberglass.
Thanks for the advice. I used a 2 part marine epoxy last summer, but still have a small leak this spring. Maybe I’ll try this stuff. Where can I find it?
It is a two part and you can form it to whatever shape you want. Once you are done and maybe let’s say you got a little carried away you can sand it down and then paint it. This stuff dries in 20 minutes and is rock solid. On my windshield I filled the existing holes and drilled and tapped the propoxy and it worked wonders.
Oh, for the skeg it really makes your motor look like new (especially after paint)….that is until you hit something and then it will chip off.
Hope this helps ya.
W.A. Roosevelt
If married…take wife fishing, let boat fill with water to where wife gets wet feet…wife gives permission to get new boat…you know for safety reasons !
Have you tried the “hammer trick?” Get two hammers, have a partner hold one hammer againced the rivot on the inside of the boat while you give it good whack from the outside. It has worked for me in the past.
One day I discovered a nasty looking crack in the bottom of my Lund S-16. Right according to Murphy’s Law, it was located in a spot where I couldn’t get at it from the outside. So I sez to myself,”Self, wotinell am I going to do?” Right away I thought of Gorilla Glue, which to me is sort of the liquid form of duct tape! The crack happened to be about 2″ long. First I took a metal scribe and cut 2 verticle line’s at either end of the crack. Hopefully this is to keep the crack from getting any bigger. Then I used a small wire brush and cleaned the area around the crack thoroughly. Next I used my Bernz-O-Matic torch to heat the crack and the surrounding area. Then I applied Gorilla Glue making sure I overlapped the area around the crack. Before I tried launching the boat I let the mess I had created dry for 24 hour’s. When I did finally launch it with my finger’s crossed, to my great surprise, there was no water leaking in! YAAAAAAAAAAY! 
This was done over 2 year’s and many launching’s ago and it still doesn’t leak! This should work just as well on rivet’s, eh? 
DIRTBALL2 
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