Pontoon Boat & Deck Boat Forum

I am in the process of replacing the fence panels on my pontoon boat. I was watching some videos on how other people have done it and they just simply slide the panel into the tracks and hammer down the lip to hold it in place. My problem is that I have supports on both ends of the fence that are welded on so I cannot slide it in. If anyone has any advice or experience with this, I would greatly appreciate any help. I have attached a picture. Thanks in advance.

ya that certainly complicates it lol.


Looks like you got two options, since you can't slide...gotta bend all the lips more then normal, get them a full 90 degrees out so you can get the panel in. Def gonna be a bit complicated to get paneling in and will need a helper for sure. A lot of times bending the tabs that much results in them breaking when you hammer then back straight.

Other option is to get a grinder with a cutoff wheel on it and cut off one of the supports. Install ur paneling then have the bracket welded back on taking good care to protect the new paneling you installed.

This may sound crazy and it very well may be but here it is. Do as proposed, bend the lips down and place new panels in. If some of the lips break, you could repair it with this aluminum stock.You could take this aluminum and cut it into strips of say six inches or less and rivet them to the inside of the railing. Because the stock is riv3ted to the railing, there should not be ripples in the panel where the rivet is.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Everbilt-1- ... /204276137

You could always cut off the supports and replace them with something like this.
That would let you slide the fence in. If I was going to attempt it, I'd probably totally cut off the lips and just put thin aluminum stock all along the bottom rail and either rivet or through bolt it. Even if you can bend the lips down far enough to make insertion easy, I don't see how you could ever get it really neat and straight when you hammer it back to it's original position.

Unlike others here I could not slide the new metal siding in the slots. The grooves were just too ragged ended up just scratching metal. Was frustrating. And opeining up all the way would have surely broke most of this now older brittle aluminum.

I ended up opening top slot, pounding down bottom slot, placing siding in top slot then on top of bottom rail. Then I took 1" aluminum strips that were somewhat bendable and used it to finish the bottom edge, (as well as side edges) riveted in place.