Posts: 284
Location: Eagan, MN | Allow me to tell you a story and perhaps vent about this little project I committed to over the weekend. Subject project cost me dearly in time and frustration. Maybe others can learn from my folly?
Bought a new Fortrex TM to replace my MK Autopilot. Works better for how I fish, except for the footpedal height. Didn't like having to do the 'Captain Morgan' all the time. So, after trying-out a buddy's and liking it alot, decided to bite the bullet and install a recessed trolling motor foot pedal tray in my Ranger 621.
Sounds like a simple job right?? Wrong. This job was hell! Not due to the tray mind you, but due to Ranger Boats over-engineered construction (not a criticism btw). This particular boat was never designed to accomodate a recessed foot pedal. So, what we thought would be an hour job, turned into a five hour job! You may wonder how that is possible, particularly as I was working alongside two boat professionals at my local marina. We pulled the boat and had it in their shop. They had done this before, but never seen the guts of the bow of a Ranger 621 series boat - so we were all venturing into the unknown.
It took an hour - and total destruction of three blades of the jig saw - to cut out the decking in accordance with the tray template. I started out punching holes with the drill, testing for depth, and all seemed okay. Started cutting. Turns out there was the fiberglass decking that was about 1/2", attached to that was a layer of what we think was kevlar, attached to another layer of fiberglass of about 1/4", then a large, thick 1/2 PVC pipe which formed a support beam over the front deck for support. None of which we knew about - and all had to be cut through. No wonder the jig saw was smoking!
The cutting was super slow and very tedious. I was sweating profusely. When we finally got the decking off, the tray wouldn't fit. So, we spent more time trimming-up the cut-out using the jig saw. That took quite a while and was complicated by the rod tubes which didn't allow enough clearance on the top portion of the tray. We mashed them down after digging them out of the foam to allow compression.
Once the tray fit, there were other problems. There was foam completely encasing the front deck and surrounding the two layers of rod tubes which were directly under the tray hole we cut. The foam went all the way down to the keel/hull. We couldn't figure out how to address the tray drain hole through all that foam and rod tubes. We knew that there was a drain tube running from the very tip of the bow down into the hull, but didn't know how it was configured or where it ran. The hours melted away. We tried various ways to try to set-up the drain on the tray, none of which worked. We wound-up using a Saws-All to cut the two layers of the two center-most rod tubing out, chipping and scooping the foam all the way down to the keel hull, and found what we thought was the drain tube which, in Ranger style, was made of a large, thick fiberglass tube resting right in the crease of the boat keel.
Not completely sure if we were drilling into the hull or into the drain tube, we ran a bright light down the bow drain tube and could see that we had indeed found the drain channel. Satisfying that, we drilled a hole to accomodate the drain tube, siliconed it in, and connected the tubing to the tray and screwed the tray in place. Four of my rod tubes will need a new sleeve to make them usable, but all-in-all the tray is a very nice addition to my boat. Not sure I would do it again though if I knew then what I know now! Wow, was that a job.
Consider this words of caution for anyone considering installing a recessed footpedal tray on this particular boat.
Brian
|
