Loose Rivets

[CDE]

I have a '93 Sylvan boat that has finially made too many trips across Lake Winnie. The rivets have worked loose. Anyone know of someone or place that can possibly repair. Can't swing a new Warrior, yet. It seems to be the whole keel.

Clayton

[musky hunter]

Don't know who can fix it, but it seems unlikely that it is the whole keel. By the way, I have a similar problem with my Smokercraft. When on the trailer out of the water, take a garden hose and fill 'er up. Leaking rivets will then be easy to spot. I suspect that they will have a propensity to be toward the bow, the area of the boat that has the greatest stress against rough waves. On mine, it is localized to just one spar. I temporarily patched them using closed end pop rivets. Pop rivets are not as strong as solid rivets, but they seem to be holding none the less. If it is localized, that might be a short or long term solution. If it's many, unfortunatly, you are looking at either an expensive repair or a lot of work, because the rivets must be exposed from both inside and outside of the boat, but bucking them back is a simple two person job, one in the boat and one outside the boat. It's exposing the loose rivets and putting the rest of the boat back together that's so time consuming. Good luck.

[cold one sd]

I had some repaired on a 93 Starcraft last fall. They drilled the old ones out and replaced them with some kind of pop rivet made for this purpose.

[Steve Bakken]

Like Musky said, the closed pop rivets will work for a while, but they're not as strong as the solids, and if you sell or trade, it's a warning sign to any potential buyer that there has been leaking issues. We repair dozens of leaky boats every year and yes, the big thing is gaining access to the rivets since they have to be "set" with pressure on both sides, but in the long run, it's well worth it.