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Cleaning pontoons

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truckone176

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I have a 2275 RCW tritoon, my question to everyone is how do you get to the bottom of the 'toons to clean the gunk off. How do you lift the boat while on the trailer?
 
I clean mine in the water at a sand bar .
 
Renegade34 said:
Nice! I've never thought to lower them while on the trailer. I'll have to see if I can with mine.
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I had to pop the feet off to clear the trailer frame so it wasn’t as simple as it could have been. The other part of this adventure was I had a bad hydraulic leak and the boat ended up stuck up in the air until I made a 100 mile round trip to buy oil to fill the reservoir so I could drop it back on the trailer. Good Times! :mad: That being said, I plan on doing it again....
 
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Lil Spooky OH6A said:
Hi Jack, I attempt to clean mine in shallow water, (sandbar), how do you do the cleaning? Thanks.
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I do have Sharkhide ,so that does help . I use a car wash mitt on each hand ( I also have a soft brush if I need it ) and just wipe them down . When I go underneath ,my wife watch for morons in the no wake zone .You dont need a wake when you are crammed into a 13 inch ( or so ) space . I "try" to do them once a week .
I just did it last Monday , water was like glass and not many others were out .Perfect for getting underneath .
 
Wipe them when ever it is convenient . The slime will slow you down
 
I just pulled my boat a week ago to take on vacation. Wanted to clean the pontoons. Went to the dollar store and picked up 6 bottles of Works toilet bowl cleaner. $1.89 a bottle. Put it in a pump jug and sprayed to toons. Took the river grime right off. Then just rinsed off with water.
 
can you clean the toon its self if the bottom is already painted or will tiolet bowl cleaner ruin my bottom paint?
 
DaveyJ said:
View attachment 23119
They work well for cleaning, note the boat is about 6” above the bunks.....:D
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What are you using to clean your tubes with? They look great! Mine are terrible....they are stained and look terrible....First pontoon boat here. I had a fiberglass boat for years I took really good care of but I bought this pontoon used and it's killing me that they look so bad!
 
Kilokato said:
What are you using to clean your tubes with? They look great! Mine are terrible....they are stained and look terrible....First pontoon boat here. I had a fiberglass boat for years I took really good care of but I bought this pontoon used and it's killing me that they look so bad!
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I used White Diamond and a 10” buffer after using aluminum cleaner. Next time I plan to use something more aggressive and sharkhide at the end so the finish stays longer because it looks like crap already.
 
Ok, I tried JJV's Best Aluminum cleaner now my tubes look like crap even though I did exactly as the YouTube video says to....Now I have tubes that are different shades of gray, silver and black and chaulky looking....any ideas?....Do I need to apply another coat? tubecleaner 002.JPG tubecleaner 003.JPG
 
Bummer but probably no surprise. Unless your toons are protected by Sharkhide from the beginning, they'll never look like new without a lot of effort. An acid wash sometimes will make them appear more uniform but even this procedure doesn't always work (ask me how I know).

And if your boat continually sits in the water, that makes things even worse. So, I've come to the conclusion that if you want something that looks perfect, buy a fiberglass boat. Having had both, I'm sold on the pontoon platform and have been trying to not focus too much on my unsightly toons.

Another thought is to get them covered with a vinyl wrap like "Vantage". I'm having that installed on mine and will be able to give the forum a detailed report in June.
 
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