In the 80's I had a v bottom aluminum boat, lots of rivets were leaking, I put water in the boat, and marked all the leaking rivets. Turned the boat over drilled out the leaking rivets. Cleaned brushed the area around each hole. Put silicone in the hole, placed a round head screw in the hole put a washer and nut on the inside, and tightened. The screw needs to be the same size as the hole, and just long enough to fit with little or no threads through the nut. I had this boat for several more years and never had any screws leak. I did drill out more rivets. Try it on a few to see if it will work for you. DeeJay

First, I'd like to thank all who responded to my post about old gas in my tank for my boat. I read all suggestions, emptied the tank, got new gas, got new 2 stroke oil, and put StarTron and Seafoam in the new gas. The motor started right up. I'm pretty sure we had put Stabil in the old gas, so it wasn't too bad.

When I started up the motor after 2 years, it wasn't pumping water. A friend and I replaced the impeller and found it still wasn't working. I had a bug or something climb up the line and make a home. As soon as we cleaned the line out, it was working perfectly. Turns out the impeller was fine. I don't think the old impeller or spark plugs had an hour of runtime on them.

The boat is a 15 foot aluminum job that leaked pretty bad from the time I bought it. After reading other suggestions from people here, I was going to use some JB Weld and try to see if I could get it to leak a bit less. My son suggested I find an aluminum welder and see what he could do. I found one online that looked at pictures I sent him and said he could do it for a couple hundred bucks. He had it for a day or two, I picked it up, and he didn't raise his price. He did some nice work, I'll attach a couple of before and after pictures.

So my son and I took it out a week or so ago. It seemed to be leaking less right up until my son took a step in one spot and we heard a pop. I didn't really think that much about it until I looked by his foot and there was a little fountain shooting up. It really did look a bit like a cartoon. We found something to plug the hole where a rivet had popped out. Then he stepped somewhere else and another pop and another cartoon fountain. It was fairly comical, we bailed and kept fishing.

So enough of the story, here's the question. Have any of you replaced rivets in an aluminum boat's hull? I've been looking it up online and think I have a plan, but I'd like to get some input from anyone that's actually done it before. I found a guy here in town that gave me some solid rivets, and I think I can make them work. They are the rivets that hold the benches to the hull right in the bottom of the hull.