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 Swamp Donkey Revamp PICS 
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MMT F.E.
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Joined: Tue Mar 08, 2011 10:09 pm
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Location: North Central KS
Post Swamp Donkey Revamp PICS
This past summer I decided to buy an aluminum boat and figured it would be a great project. I'd been wanting buy a boat to fish, and hunt out of anyways so I decided to go aluminum and began looking. After about 2 weeks of craigslist and multiple leads I finally found the boat I wanted, a 1436 Lowe, the guy wanted $500 and said he'd throw in a motor although he didn't know if it ran. When i showed up it was in pretty rough shape and barely towable. i had to go to Walmart and buy a New wheel and tire just to get it home. This summer I made major progress on the "Swamp Donkey" and pretty well restored it back to good condition the before and after photos astound me still today...

The First Day










Extending Tongue for Shallow Drop-ins










Used rust reformer on the inner part of the tongue, I think it chemically neutralizes the iron and stops the rusting reaction.




Got a buddy of mine to do some welding on the trailer tongue...




I also had him make me a custom winch post...






Final Assembly of the trailer frame after a coat of rust reformer, primer and paint...






Bolted on the bunks I made...




Starting to re-wire the lights


The LED lights are individually grounded and sealed so I extended the ground, and ran the wires through the conduit all the way back to the frame.




Here's the grounds to the tail lights...




All finished!


Cutting the corner caps and getting ready to replace the transom...


Basically the Transom wood was well... over 45 years old and had seen better days, it fell apart and I used a shop vac to remove most of it...










Fabricating the new transom...


There is the completed winch post, I did cut off the excess from the support bars with an angle grinder and it has a much cleaner look now.






I bought these rods to fit on either sides of the conduit along the bottom of the tongue so the u-bolts wouldn't pinch the conduit and short out my tail light wires




After stripping most of the paint off...




I put a layer of "bed liner" roll on material on the bottom of the boat because of the many sandbars I may be encountering, just a little insurance...


New transom slid into place and getting ready to get it welded up...


It did take a little bit of modding to fit the corner caps...




A buddy of mine right here, works at his dad's irrigation company/hog farm and they primarily deal with aluminum and have a couple tigs so it worked out perfectly








Painted the entire boat and decided to keep it a solid color for right now...


Had to give 'er a name




Used closed cell foam between the support ribs on the floor to make it flat and topped the floor with neo-mats in Max-4








Finally got around to mounting the fire extinguisher


Also installed two hatches for storage under the seats and three illuminated rocker switches for the head lights, navigation lights, and anchor light.








Right now I'm away at college but the next improvement will be pods, and eventually a homemade lt, thanks for lookin!

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Thu Mar 10, 2011 7:11 pm
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Post Re: Swamp Donkey Revamp
Looks like alot of hard work... Good job....

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Thu Mar 10, 2011 7:22 pm
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Post Re: Swamp Donkey Revamp
Man. Looks like you put some serious time into that. Good job. Looks good.

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Thu Mar 10, 2011 7:31 pm
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Post Re: Swamp Donkey Revamp
Hey thanks guys! I really appreciate it!

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1436 Lowe
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Thu Mar 10, 2011 8:15 pm
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Post Re: Swamp Donkey Revamp
nice job kid ;) when your'e ready look at the copperhead s/d for your new mudmotor

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Thu Mar 10, 2011 8:17 pm
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Post Re: Swamp Donkey Revamp PICS
You are driven. Good work. Serious tools you have and you know how to use them.

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Thu Mar 10, 2011 8:24 pm
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MMT F.E.
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1436 Lowe
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Thu Mar 10, 2011 8:31 pm
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Post Re: Swamp Donkey Revamp PICS
These are projects you remember, blood sweat N tears.....nice job

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Thu Mar 10, 2011 9:08 pm
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Post Re: Swamp Donkey Revamp PICS
Wow! You did great! Nice boots too! :mrgreen:

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Thu Mar 10, 2011 9:13 pm
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Post Re: Swamp Donkey Revamp PICS
So I've been contemplating on how to build a grab bar and keep the boat functional so that I can maybe remove it, I'm not sure I would want to remove it but I was thinking it may be a good thing to be able to remove it? I'm kinda lost because I'm the first person I know that owns a mm, and just making decisions on future situations that may require that i remove the grab bar? It wouldn't be hard to design a setup for a permanent grab bar, I would probably just weld a aluminum bar on top of one of the ribs and then weld two pipes to insert a grab bar and pin it, or just weld the grab bar directly to rib/aluminum. The problem with the two pipe inserts is I don't want 4in of pipe just sticking out of the floor. I thought about building a small aluminum box with a hole in the top big enough to cover it with a small cooler insert that can be removed in order to insert pins through the box and into the ribs on either sides of the box. Then have the two pipes welded to the box and the grab bar come off of that? Am I making sense? probably not... It made sense in my head though! If you guys have any ideas or thoughts about what you guys have done i'd sure love to hear what yall can come up with! :D

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1436 Lowe
-Workin for the man, Huntin when I can...-


Thu Mar 10, 2011 11:59 pm
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Post Re: Swamp Donkey Revamp PICS
Here is an idea, make a resceptacle on the side of the boat that a grab bar can slide down in...that is how my Gator-tail is done...

Woody

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Fri Mar 11, 2011 11:14 am
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Post Re: Swamp Donkey Revamp PICS
You did a great job. That looks good! I like how you redid the trailer.


Fri Mar 11, 2011 11:30 am
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Post Re: Swamp Donkey Revamp PICS
Kick ass Job!

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Fri Mar 11, 2011 12:14 pm
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Post Re: Swamp Donkey Revamp PICS
very nice job man!!! looks like you put allot of work into it


Fri Mar 11, 2011 2:10 pm
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Sat Mar 12, 2011 12:11 am
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Post Re: Swamp Donkey Revamp PICS
how much did them neo mats run you and where you get them at, im looking at options for the floor on my 1436 and that sounds like a good option that doesnt add much weight.

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Sat Mar 12, 2011 9:09 pm
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Post Re: Swamp Donkey Revamp PICS
I picked em up at cabelas for 79 each and I got two sections of em, for the 1436 the 2 sections i got could cover the floor with about 4 extra inches under each of the bench seats for overlap so it worked out well

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1436 Lowe
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Sun Mar 13, 2011 12:17 am
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Post Re: Swamp Donkey Revamp PICS
Great work. Reminds me of when I had to do mine. My trailer wasn't that bad off but is much better now. Just like you I had to add a few things to the boat to run at night.
Great job.

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Sun Mar 13, 2011 8:59 am
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Post Re: Swamp Donkey Revamp PICS
Working on boats is a blast!

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Sun Mar 13, 2011 9:04 am
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Post Re: Swamp Donkey Revamp PICS
Great job man! I remember those little jon boat remodels when I was younger. Those mean more to ya than a $20,000 custom built rig.

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Sun Mar 13, 2011 9:48 am
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Post Re: Swamp Donkey Revamp PICS
Some updated pictures... I finished my longtail build but have yet to paint it. But as of right now it runs!





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Thu Sep 08, 2011 11:15 pm
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Post Re: Swamp Donkey Revamp PICS
Looks great. You really put in the time to do it right. How's your longtail push it?

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Fri Sep 09, 2011 12:45 am
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Post Re: Swamp Donkey Revamp PICS
What did you use for your lower bearing housing, bearings and seals? I need to replace mine and will have to start from scratch on the lower end.


Fri Sep 09, 2011 5:27 am
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Post Re: Swamp Donkey Revamp PICS
that is super impressive


Fri Sep 09, 2011 8:33 am
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Post Re: Swamp Donkey Revamp PICS
real nice work man!!

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Fri Sep 09, 2011 9:11 am
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1436 Lowe
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Sat Sep 10, 2011 1:12 pm
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Post Re: Swamp Donkey Revamp PICS
how big is the motor and what prop are yu running?


Mon Sep 12, 2011 2:33 pm
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Post Re: Swamp Donkey Revamp PICS
Hey bud , I am new to this site ...like 5 min new , lol...I saw the pic's of the 16 hp motors you have , you mentioned going to a 22 hp? I was almost 100% on the motor then saw your pic and post , sealed the deal !

, I'm going with the 16 hp ...will that work for a 14 ft Alum Monark , ( push it okay )? also , would like to know if you have any Idea where to get a set of plans , looks like you made a few so I figured I'd ask ....

Any help would be much appreciated ...Thanks


Wed Jan 16, 2013 9:35 pm
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Post Re: Swamp Donkey Revamp PICS
Reminds me of taking my daughter out on the boat... I brought the little porta potti too.

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Thu Jan 17, 2013 12:56 pm
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