A Jon boat journey - Life and times, and mods, of a G3 river Jon.

[Texas Grown]

Been working on this for a few years. Thought I'd share some of the stuff I've done with both the trailer and the boat. I've still got a few more things and mods I want to do with the boat.


In the beginning, there was this home made trailer and G3-1648 hull.




The trailer was rough is an understatement. No light brackets ect. Someone had also tried to build up the transom on the hull for a mud motor. But did not do it correctly. Most of the welds were in the wrong location and broken. This is a short shaft transom. That I will build up for a long shaft motor. I plan to one day replace the transom completely with an all aluminum/metal transom.



















Someone that was a good stick-welder did do a nice job putting this trailer frame together using pieces of scrap for gussets in the corners. It's not a tilt trailer. But really don't need one for this boat rig.

[Texas Grown]

First order was to get the trailer in a good road worthy shape. Might as well go for broke.


The trailer came with some bolt-on guide-ons. I cut them and custom fit them for permanent fixture to the trailer frame.









Then did a quick fab for some light brackets.

[Texas Grown]

I added a place for a wench later.








And left the hull where it could watch it's bed being remade.

[Texas Grown]

Got the guide-on brackets welded on.

[Texas Grown]

Gotta nice new shiny trailer jack.


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And some trailer lights.



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Started pulling the old rotted shag carpeted bunkboards off.



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[Texas Grown]

Then switched gears and decided to add a removable tongue.

[Texas Grown]

Wire brushed the frame down and started a prime and repaint.






















Before loading the boat on, I bought some new wood and added some new marine grade carpet to some new bunk-boards.












Then I decided to fab up some high output lights.

[Texas Grown]

All aluminum housing. One is a flood. The other a spot. Notice the lock to keep in place. Also allows me to remove them if I want . Also installed two 12volt sockets to plug the lights into, that can be used for other things as well. These were temporarly wire direct for testing. And have since received a cord with plug for the sockets.

[Texas Grown]

While I was at it, I went ahead and rewired the boat. Then started building/fabbing this aluminum framed folding duck blind. The frame it's self weighs 8lbs total (less netting and grass).

Notice the transom cleaned up with previous alluminum removed, new wood flooring in the back, and battery. Also plumbed in the bilge pump and added some new 6ga trolling motor wiring.

[Texas Grown]

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Miss Pickles is such a show-off.



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Ready for water travel.



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And ready for storage. 4 parts with pull pins.



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[Texas Grown]

Finely got a brand new 25hp E-tech motor. And did some proper transom mods to lift it up. It's ready for the water and test run. Got little over 29mph on the hand held GPS.


Here's the newly built up transom.






And a quartering away shot.

[Texas Grown]

After a few runs, I found it difficult to get my fat old butt in and out of the boat. So I did another trailer mod to make life easier. Works great! I can step right on the the tailgate of my truck. And ever get my feet wet.

[Texas Grown]

Here's a couple more things I did. The stern light would not stand straight up. So I fabbed a little piece of aluminum up and welded it so it would stand up straight.






Here's a shot of some of the plumbing.




And a switch pannel to controll all lighting, bilge, ect.

[Texas Grown]

I wanted to add a foot controlled trolling motor to the front cause the hand controlled about killed my back trying to use it. So I added this little spiff and put a Minn Kota Terrova with spot lock and I-link on the front.


Bend, form, weld, drill, cut, rivet

[Texas Grown]

My latest project(s) on this project has been for storage. As I've no place to keep boating stuffs like life jackets, emergency flares, flags, and spare goods all boaters need. I had been using a 48" x 20" plastic foot locker. But it was always getting in the way and was stuffed full. So I fabbed up these two lockers/boxes. The big one is big enough to hold several shotguns and/or all my extra gear. The smaller one on the starboard side is perfect as I've been able to move my depth finder from the bench seat to it's top making navigation much easier when I don't have to look away from forward to see what's on the Humingbird. Now I can look down and right back up. The lift/pull latches on top are lockable as well.


The contour on one side of each box matches the gunnel of each side of the boat so minimal space is lost.

The small starboard side locker/box









The large port-side gun box/locker




In use. Notice where the depth-finder is on the left (old location).






And same depth-finder in new location = much easier navigation.