gmtech Custom Fishing Rod Holding Tubes...

[gmtech16450yz]

I'm back with more mods to motivate, encourage and frustrate. lol.

I was tired of dealing with the mess of tangled fishing rods in the floor compartment, so I figured out a way to keep them organized. I'm not 100% convinced I'll keep the towel idea, but it seems to be a viable solution to them sliding out of the tubes by themselves. Here are the pics...

 

[robert cabrerea]

Wow nice work!!!

 

[swatski]

@gmtech16450yz Wow - another brilliant mod!!!!!

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[DieselCamel]

Brilliant

 

[Sbrown]

Brilliant

I agree....
As my dear old grandpa used to say "You're one fart smella'"

 

[gmtech16450yz]

Thanks guys!!! It's really not that hard of a mod, I know you all can do it if you also have a pile of fishing poles tangled up in your boat. All you need is a hole saw, drill, some plumbers tape and screws, PVC pipe and pipe cement. And of course a little courage to drill big holes in your boat!

I've done a few more mods to the boat lately too, give me a few minutes and I'll find some pics...

 

[gmtech16450yz]

Made some more cupholder/rod holders. I now have 6 of them, 4 in back and two in front. Just plastic welded ABS pipe to the bottoms of the stock cupholders, then cut open the middle. You can still put a can in them.






Made a compartment by the driver that will actually hold my Thermoflask and a bunch of other goodies...






Put this image as my background in my Simrad... (HUGE mod. lol.)







Ordered two more of the stock billet handles and put them at the back where Yamaha should have put them...






Finally finished my fire system install... One nozzle under the drivers console and two in the engine compartment.





Bought and installed a VHF radio and antenna...





Mounted and wired up an HD dash cam that I had sitting around in my shop from a car I sold... This will be AWESOME for when I finally catch a shark in the SF Bay! No need to get out a camera, the dash cam will be recording it all automatically.





And speaking of sharks in the SF Bay, my wife and I finally did this...

 

[gmtech16450yz]

The other mod I did I didn't take any pictures of because it was kind of hidden.
When I was putting the cupholder/rod holders in the front of the boat, I noticed that there was a lot of open area in the bow with big, noisy panels. I walked around the front of the boat and knocked on the fiberglass on the bow. It made a TON of hollow noise. You could actually distort the bow by pushing on the fiberglass in the areas behind and below the tip of the bow. I took the inside trim panels off and looked in the speaker holes towards the front of the boat, there was NO carpet or insulation of any type in the whole front of the boat. All those panels behind the bow and in the anchor compartment are just free to rattle against each other and transmit noise. I don't like noise. lol.

So I cut up a few big chunks of the mattress foam I had. (If you look at my first picture in this thread you can see the foam I put under the floor panel that covers the gas tank.) I stuffed the foam chunks up into the inside of the bow and around the anchor compartment. I also put foam under where the floor compartment meets the step at the front of the boat where the cupholders are. I then filled all the extra voids with spray expanding foam, like 6 or 8 cans worth! So the entire front of the boat is filled with a combination of closed cell type mattress or memory foam and expanding spray foam.

The result? The whole front of the boat feels a TON more solid. If you knock on the outside of the bow, it feels solid as a rock. The upper parts around the anchor compartment feel solid instead of hollow, and the anchor compartment panels themselves are also solid instead of rattling. I also insulated where the anchor itself hangs in the compartment so it doesn't bang on the panels. Will any of this be noticeable when I'm out in the boat? I think it will be. I have heard "noise" from the bow area over choppy water that sounded like hollow fiberglass panels. I have a feeling those noises will be gone. I'll find out this weekend, it's actually going to be nice and sunny so we're thinking about exploring the Delta up to Sacramento.

Thanks again guys, I hope some of these mods encourage you to expand your skill set a little and/or end up enjoying your boat a little more!

 

[gmtech16450yz]

BTW are my pictures way too big or are they ok? I'm using a 4k monitor and fast internet so sometimes I don't realize stuff I'm sending or posting is too big! Would you guys rather I posted them as thumbnails?

 

[zipper]

Pictures are great, loaded instantly on my shitty interweb service. Nice bead on the rod holders. Really like your cup holder/tray mod. I like reading of your clever mod. ideas. Nice job, keep posting them up.

 

[swatski]

@gmtech16450yz The pictures are GREAT. PLEASE DO NOT STOP POSTING!

I love how you make use of all the hollow space in the boat, or filling it up with foams.
I used the same trick with memory foam in my older 2012 (which was LOUDER THAN HELL), worked great as a sound deadening material but some of it did get wet, and needed to be removed.

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[Ilmmct]

@gmtech16450yz the fishing storage mod is awesome and surprisingly something that is within my “mechanical apptitude” skill range. Nice work!

 

[newbote]

Those rod/cupholders are great! Any chance you could list what parts you bought? Also - any quick tutorial on how you plastic welded them on? I have never plastic welded before but would love to do this to my boat.

 

[zipper]

I used to weld pvc sheets together as a facilities maintenance tech. At IBM back in the early 80's. Summer job between college semesters. I used a hot air welder and pvc stick. A larger version of what you can buy on Amazon now. Was pretty good at it. That is why I envied @gmtech16450yz 's bead on the abs weld. It takes some practice.

 

[jeff_s]

Your mods are great @gmtech16450yz

 

[gmtech16450yz]

Thanks a ton guys! I was hoping to stir up a little mod fever and encourage people to push their skill levels a little bit higher. Obviously nothing I do is impossible to duplicate, it just takes the courage to try and probably fail. haha. Not trying to be mean either, I fail all the time. But my failures make doing things that are maybe a little less ambitious end up in successes. And of course just seeing somebody else do things can help you realize that they CAN be done.

newbote... The rod holders are both simple and tricky. haha. Tricky is trying to put long enough tubes in the cupholders to hold big poles and realizing that there's a little too much "boat" below the cupholders to allow for them! The front ones were the hardest, I had to do a little hole sawing and fiberglassing under those. But ones like at the rear corners of the inside area are easy because there's plenty of room under the cupholders. But again, the two all the way on the rear deck were tricky because I had to put drain tubes on the bottoms of the rod holders since that area gets a lot of water. So my first advice is try putting them in the rear cupholders first since those are the easiest. As far as plastic welding, just try it on a few pieces of plastic by using simply a soldering iron. Just like any welding, you want to "mix" the two melted areas. The biggest mistake people make is they want it to look pretty by smoothing it all out, that's the worst thing to do. You want to try to make little "bridges" between the two pieces with the melted materials. Like zipper said, it takes practice. The first time I plastic welded anything was when I was making models as a kid and the glue took too long to set. (no super glues back then. lol.) I got tired of holding the parts while the glue set up so I started plastic welding them together instead. Lots of failures there! haha.

BTW, the rod holder tubes worked awesome! Unfortunately the fish weren't impressed since not one of them wanted to get in the boat to see them.

 

[Sbrown]

Thanks a ton guys! I was hoping to stir up a little mod fever and encourage people to push their skill levels a little bit higher. Obviously nothing I do is impossible to duplicate, it just takes the courage to try and probably fail. haha. Not trying to be mean either, I fail all the time. But my failures make doing things that are maybe a little less ambitious end up in successes. And of course just seeing somebody else do things can help you realize that they CAN be done.

I give you kudos on two things; First, your inventiveness and creativity along with your ability to see possibilities and solve problems. Second, is your obvious willingness to drill holes in your boat.
I have the skills to do what you're doing, I am just very reluctant to futz around, to that extent, with a boat that is still under warranty, especially after reading some other posts about Yamaha seemingly using any excuse they can to decline honoring warranty obligations.

 

[zipper]

@gmtech16450yz Don't tell me you drew that bead with a soldering iron.

 

[gmtech16450yz]

@gmtech16450yz Don't tell me you drew that bead with a soldering iron.

Yep. lol.

 

[zipper]

You never cease to amaze.