New Tower for Me (Lost of post-installation pics)

After a year of price hunting, I found a tower on eBay for $410 shipped. Here are some pics of the tower installed. I was able to get my existing bimini top working underneath it so I'm pretty happy about that. It was tight though.

Here's the overall view:



And with the Bimini Top up:


The box the tower came in wasn't that big. Makes wonder why it cost $38 to ship.


This sucker mounts to the side so I removed the speakers to get access to the backing plates:



The front poles were top mounted so I was able to access them pretty easily. I did have to cut out a small chunk of foam on each side. You can see the backing plates installed on the underneath shots. On the drivers side, I was close to drilling through my horn. I had unmounted it until after installation.





EDIT: Oh and if you were wondering about the black wire in connected to the backing plate on the 1st underneath shot shown above, that's my antennae wire. My AM radio reception is somewhat improved now.

When I say the bimini top was a tight fit, I really mean it. In order to keep the bimini pole from scratching the tower pole, I engineered a solution using the tool of champions:

Here's an in-action closeup:


The only place where I deviated from the instructions was that I got the tower in place and then drilled the holes for the center piece last. I'd do it that way again if I had to install another tower, but make sure you have a Shop Vac handy if you do it that way. I got metal shavings all in the boat.


We did a water test right afterwards and it and my new A-Line rope worked great. I left the camera at home so didn't get any pics of that. It's ok though because we were all too cold to try anything worth filming.

All in all, it was worth it to have 3 people working on the tower. It's mostly a two man job but that 3rd really comes in handy a few times.

(Message edited by hal2814 on April 08, 2008)

Nice install, it looks clean.

Jman

looks good

Not bad Dante, can't beat $410!

-Steve

PS If you know someone who TIG welds, I'd consider getting the sleeve welded solid.

nice job would also consider adding backer plates to the mounts to spread the load out more

that looks great. later, you could find a piece of black rubber hose that would fit over the aluminum tubing in place of the duct tape handywork. Maybe a screw could hold it in place, or I'm sure somebody else could come up with an engineered solution

yea, it wouldn't take much to put some shrink wrap on that instead of duct tape.

looks good

Thanks for the compliments. My main goal in posting was to show an install with a standard bimini top. I was looking for anyone with install pics with a standard bimini and couldn't find a thing. I think most people with opt for taller tops though. I originally had one that was about 42" tall but i took it back and a 36" one. The taller one shaded the water more than the boat and I'm too tall to fit underneath either height comfortably anyways.


Some replies:
-I don't know anyone who can weld aluminum very well or I'd already be on that.

-I was planning on adding backing plates but my fiberglass thickness is up to the specs in the instruction book (3/8") so I decided to go ahead and mount it and just keep an eye on things. If I do go to backing plates, adding them up front won't do much good due to how close the mounts are to the sidewalls and bow seating.

-I originally tried pipe insulation instead of duct tape but it was way too thick. The duct tape is more durable than anything like shrink wrap would be. Also, there's way more on the pole than we really need. When I get a better idea of what's going to rub what on a regular basis, a lot of the tape is coming off. Ideally, in the end you won't even see it when the bimini is fully deployed.

-Oh and with $410, I cheated and used a $10 off PayPal coupon so the actual bid amount plus shipping was $420. The next day I got a 10% off up to $25 coupon. D'OH!

i can TIG but i dont live anywhere close to you

Looks great, I did the same thing before I broke down and bought a wakeboard boat.