How to find boat leak

[fly2cast]

When I'm out fishing for a few hours and I turn on the bilge, I have a little bit of water that comes out. However when I load my boat and open the plug a whole bunch of water comes out even though there wasn't much water in the bilge area. Any ideas where the water might be coming from? Any ideas how to find the leak? Its an aluminum boat.

 

[westwolfone]

IDK if this will work with your boat or not. My only experience is with old pos boats.

Put it on trailer, put plug in, and run a garden hose inside your boat and see if you can see where it's coming out.

 

[Davey Crockett]

If it has been drilled for a transducer that's where I would start looking.

 

[deleted member]

lots of boats sit pretty level in the water. some even sit a little lower in the front than the back when not in motion. so, you won't necessarily see all of the water in the bilge area. its likely distributed pretty evenly in the hull. which means there is no way to tell where its coming from under those circumstances. even filling it with water won't always work because the water might exit where the leak is and travel the ridges/ribs before exiting on the ground. so, the only sure fire way is to pull all of the flooring, sprinkle a bunch of flour all over the floor and then float that thing. the flour will get wet right where the water enters. sounds like fun!

 

[fly2cast]

How do you repair leaks when you find them? Will silicon work? Also, could a person just silicon all of the seams that you think may leak?

 

[FishReaper]

If a guy was to use silicone use the best stuff you can find. you only want to tear your boat apart once. Id look at hoses going to and from livewells. i had a loose clamp on my old boat and that put a fair amount of water in her

 

[Ericb]

I had the same issue found out my livewell hoses were old and cracking.

 

[westwolfone]

How do you repair leaks when you find them? Will silicon work? Also, could a person just silicon all of the seams that you think may leak?

There's a forum called tinboats.net that has a lot of good information on aluminum boats. They all swear by a product made by 3M (not Silicone) to repair leaks.

 

[SupressYourself]

I believe I've used the 3M stuff. It's a green stick that you heat with a torch and smear it on as it melts. It works pretty well, but won't do you a bit of good unless you find the actual leak. It's not practical to do all the seams and every rivet -- could just be leaking around a loose rivet. I tried to patch all suspect spots on my old boat like this, but it still leaked until I pulled the floor and found it.
It's going to be a pain in the arse, but the right way to do it is just what 'espringers' said. Pull out the floor and see where it comes in. Then you can patch it from the inside as well as the outside.
Or... just forget it and make sure you have a good bilge pump -- maybe a backup hand-operated one too. I always used to turn on the bilge while I moved to a new spot. On-plane the front of the boat should be higher and move all the water to the back where the bilge can get at it.

 

[TVolkZV]

the 3m sealant is 3M 5200 marine sealant. it takes 7 days to cure they do make a fast curing version of it that cures in 2 days. before you pull your floor off jack the boat off the trailer and make sure your not just missing rivets. if you are you can use pop rivet i went to an airport and got high grade aircraft rivets i bit expensive but for 2 rivets was not a big deal i had to use an air puller to pop them but it sealed up the boat and had no further problems. might save you some time depending on how much is required to get your floor off.

 

[johnr]

I had a friends boat roll down hill and his trailer hit my boat hard enough to put a crease in the aluminum, I filled the boat with water to make sure it didn't leak anywhere around the damage, it didn't so I called it good.


Your problem sounds like a damn nightmare, I would just leave it alone. Unless you are getting a ton of water in the boat, who cares if there is a couple gallons under the floor. I always pull my plug on the ramp to drain water that might be in the boat out, sometimes not one drop comes out, other times seems like there is 15 gallons pouring out. Not sure why one time its dry and the next not?
I sure am not going to remove my floor, wow for a ton of work for a bit of water.

Good luck I hope you find it.

 

[eyexer]

I would also be looking into all the hoses and fittings/connections for my livewell system before anything else.

 

[NodakBuckeye]

Another for checking livewell lines, etc... had the drain break on the front livewell on mine- the kind with the remote open/drain switch. Check inlets too.

 

[dukgnfsn]

I had the same issue found out my livewell hoses were old and cracking.

I am dealing with this issue now also, found out it was this by plugging the livewell drain hole at back of boat and boat was dry, told me it was livewell line. Most boats the line sits below water level and always a pressure in line when in water so water coming in when anchored or at slow speeds. A good starting point if you had no problems last year and all of a sudden have water now. I old boats the lines will crack over time.
dukgnfsn

 

[fly2cast]

Well I shot water into my aerator line with a hose and determined that it is leaking pretty good. I'm guessing this is where the problem is. For now, I'll just plug that hole until I can figure out how to fix/replace the leak in the line.