has anyones tower cracked?

my tower cracked around the weld and we think it might be becasue water got in the piping and froze. has this ever happened to anyone

Yes I've seen a cracked tower. and I highly doubt it is because water got into your tower and froze. What kind of tower is it? I've seen a few of the original zero flex towers crack.

Seen a few.

water got in the piping and froze.

I've broke two, call the manufacturer they will hopefully fix it as long as you don't have a ton of stuff on your tower.
Good luck
p.s. even if you have to pay for it I would have the manufacturer fix it for legal reasons if it ever breaks off and hurts someone you don't want to be liable for that. Ya know
al

Take it to your dealer, they'll reweld it, or pay someone else to.

My 205v with the ZeroFlex Flyer has cracks in it as I type this. Have been welded a few times, continue to crack in the same place. We even take it ultra-easy on it and punish the old 2001.

FWIW, my ZeroFlex has weep holes so NO water could remain inside the tubing (thus, no freeze-expanded pipe). My Flight Control tower on the 2001 has the same 'weep' holes.

Same thing happend to me .

re-welding allum doesnt work well.... I tried 2x w/ 2 seperate shops, both very good & neither lasted a week. Its not the most cosmetic appealing but we used a set of 1/2" x 4" metal brackets & nuts/bolts. We drilled a hole through each end of the plate & the tower. We then placed the bracket over/across the weld & fed the nuts down through, tightened the bolts & were good to go. We did paint to match after completion.

I had a weld crack on my tower. Took it to a shop and they rewelded it for like 20 bucks. Has held up great since, which was about a year ago.

I think it also matters what type of welder they use for alluminum. There is mig and tig. Tig has a higher frequency and creates a better bond. Also, there is friction welding? I know Lockheed Martin is switching over to that for building their aluminum fuel tanks.

Lockheed has been using Friction stir welding of their Al tanks for the space shuttle for about 8yrs now. This process utilizes some pretty high dollar tooling(ie a hardened highspeed bit)so using it for tower welding may be out of the question.

It also depends on where your weld / crack is. My tower I coule literally pull it apart & put see daylight through it - complete crack, not cosmetic. It cracked @ the very top where the 2 brackets meet right at the weld, both mine where done by Tig welders as well & were well sanded to help adhere properly but neither lasted.

EX: of where my break was

As for the tower cracking sounds like a fatigue crack caused by poor welding practice. The older towers have tons of stress risers and incomplete welds. Best case, have them remove the old weld completely, do not just weld over the crack, fatigue will find any little bit of an crack remaining and it will crack again, clean the AL with some sort wire brush or steel wool to remove any oxide then TIG weld the joint. The weld should look like a roll of dimes laying on top of each other. You could try to gusset the joint to reinforce the weld, but stress will just find the next weekest joint and crack that one.

What kind of boat/tower is it? My tower broke at the end of last season. It was a T3 Industries tower, which is not longer in business. Ins covered most of the expense of a new one.

Depreciation Sucks

Common for a lot of the earlier towers. I think most companies have it figured out now.

You can get dye testing done and other non destructive checks on the welds and cracks. Make sure the entire area is checked, and the opposite side which should have similar loads.
The welder should grind a V in the crack and start filling the V with TIG welding to ensure the crack is welded all the way through. Stress risers can start at the weld so grinding it smooth will help.
The hardest part is finding what caused the crack. If its moisture you could try a drain hole at the bottom to ensure the pipe doesn't fill. If its load figure out where it flexes. Fatigue is a problem with aluminum so you may have a flex point that is work hardened with time and is now more brittle than it should be.
You'll have to find a way to stop the flex or redistribute the load so it doisn't continue. One fix is to add more material on the outside that goes well past the problem area to stiffen it. Another is to foam fill the tower but that is a pain in many ways.
Good Luck.

Aaron's break is located where a flex failure would occur and the tower needs bracing or it will always crack there

(Message edited by rallyart on March 02, 2007)

The cracks in my ZeroFLex are NOT at the welds, rather just below them. One repair weld has cracked. Others are just crack lower than the last time.
This tower is going to the scrap pile.

Cracks below the weld are still due to the weld, temp (welding amps) is too hot or cold. Many time welds must be heat treated to equalize the stress between the two parts and the weld.

My ZeroFlex cracked at the joints. I had it welded by a guy that does motorcycles and the weld cracked within a week.

Jerry at Fluid Concepts rewelded the problem joints and it has been rock solid for two years now.

Case in point, take you tower to someone that knows the stresses put on these towers.

I saw the same thing on a $120,000 X-80 at the boat show in Sacramento. The upper bracket that is welded to the 3" tube was cracked at the tube. At first it looked like not enough heat on the weld, but I actually think it is fracturing the tube at the edge of the weld.

hey i saw that too....i was wondering why Copes would bring that boat to the show? I also saw in the saw booth an Xstar with the wrong rear deck cushion installed on the boat....

we ended up sleeving our zero flex