The leaks are all superficial and I found a pinhole where some silicone caused pitting in the aluminum. I can fix that a few different ways...not a big deal for how small it is. I'm outfitting the boat with a permanent bilge pump.
Now that the transom is in, the boat has enough structure I could flip it. New winch on the trailer allowed me to get the boat back on the trailer from the lawn without having to float it. (That's why this wasn't step one). I sanded the rest of the paint off the port side and cleaned up the hull with a brush, some steel wool, and sand paper.
I cleaned it with an alcohol, soap, water mix and then used an etching primer on it before painting it with an enamel. I sprayed a metallic finish on the gunwales to give them a little sparkle prior to the blue coat (while I had the hull inverted)
Almost ready to get it back out on the lake and work out the final fuel supply issue....either carb or fuel filter.
It was jumping out of gear under load on my first trip out. I decided to pull the transmission out and flipped the clutch dog around backwards. That fixed the slipping issue. I ordered a whole new gearset for when it fails...I also ordered a bigger fuel pump in case my second carb cleaning didn't fix the fuel supply issue I'm having at 80%+ throttle. I may be taking this thing out next week. I'm almost ready to run a full tank of gas through it.