S22 with a Toyota wakeboard tower?

[toyotafreak]

Just wondering if anybody has had a tower installed onto their S22.

Ours was installed at the dealership, and the mounting brackets fit horribly. I'm hoping that it was just mounted at the wrong angle or in the wrong place.

The brochures show the brackets fitting very well when installed at the factory.

For what it's worth, the thing only chatters in serious chop, and is solid as rock when towing.

[re-pete]

Derek-

Don't have a tower on my Epic 22, but a lot of people that visit here do.l

Wondering if you have the docking lights in your S22.  I bought a set for mine and they don't have any dimensions for locating them.  

If you do, would  you take a measurement from the stem to the front of the light and vertically from the bothom of the rub rail to the top of the light.  In most pictures it looks like the front of the light almost lines up with the back of the lifting eye.

Thanks,

Pete

[toyotafreak]

No docking lights, just nav green/red.

Seems to me like the tower is the best place to mount them suckers....maybe you ought to think about getting one before you punch into that beautiful gelcoat.

Even if your knuckles don't drag, I'm sure you have kids/friends whose do. I personnaly wouldn't get the Toyota tower since there are so many aftermarket one out there that are really cool. Get one that's at least a foot taller and then have a trampoline top made that will cover more area and be higher up than the Toyota version. Mount speakers up there not because the guy getting towed wants to hear, but for when you've pulled up to and are hanging out at a beach - to hear any normal stereo on the beach you've got to crank it so loud. With the tower speakers pointing to the beach you can keep the volume down to a level where people can actually hang out on the boat without earmuffs ;-)


Blah, blah.....need more coffee---


Derek
(714) 758-4029

[cyclone]

The Toyota tower is the best one to get for that boat. It is expensive, but it is the best design. Mastercraft copied the design for their Zeroflex. I have the tramp top too. There are glassed in aluminum plates to support the extra load, and the deck was 5/8" thick under the front supports when I drilled speaker wire holes.
I think that the factory put aside the towers that didn't fit perfectly and sold them to dealers for post sale install. Mine didn't fit nearly as well as the factory installed towers I've seen. Toyota will give you grief about your "lifetime" hull warrantee if you have an aftermarket tower.

[toyotafreak]

Exchanged emails with Mr. Triano (designer of the Epic line) regarding the towers. They are his design, and he verified that each Epic model has its own unique tower. Not sure if the upper portions (the folding part) is common or not - might save that for a later question.

I always feel bad about emailing guys like Triano, Cohn, etc. directly. Their Inbox could get huge quickly and then they might not respond to any of us.

It's now my opinion that there is no such thing as a poor-fitting tower; it's either the wrong tower, or it's the right one installed wrong.

Now to see if the dealer will get back to me on which one's installed on my boat and which one should be installed.....

[cyclone]

Nothing against my dealer, but they did make a big mistake with my boat once. They had a mechanic install my tower, he put it on 1 foot too far forward!! I damn near cried when I saw it. The window didn't even open all the way so the guy moved the windshield bumper and put it on the tower, after drilling a hole for it I gave him a brochure of a Toyota boat, he refused to believe that he put it on wrong. They did manage to straighten things out, you can't see where the holes were, even from the back side. The guy is actually a great mechanic, and he does a better job than anyone I've seen put a tower on, now!:P They have an awesome gelcoat guy, BTW.

I noticed in some new info that one of you guys just sent me that there is a part number for the pads that go under the feet of the tower. It is actually a tower installation article. I will post it soon.

I heard that the towers were made by someone who also makes towers for Supras, and located somewhere like NC or Virginia. Don't know if it's true or internet BS.

[toyotafreak]

Pete, when you run out of other things to do.....try to give a little more info about the rumor you heard about the tower manufacturer.

I sent Rick Cohn pictures of the twist in the upper portion and he responded asking for pictures of the mounting areas. I hope he's going to do some homework, call the dealer and ensure the right tower was installed.

As far as dealers go...after I got out of the Navy, I spent seven months as a rigger/QA guy at a large local dealership. Used to sell Maxum and Baja, now they sell Sea Ray. Boat dealers and their staffs are by and large $hitbirds. It's the nature of the RV beast. I saw a lot of amazing stuff there (like a customer boat gets a hole punched in the hull by a runaway forklift and the dealership stalls the customer while the gelcoat guy fixes the hole - customer was never told about it.)

That's the original reason I had wood when Toyota announced their intentions. Back then it wasn't really the fact that Toyota was gonna do it - I would've been just as stoked if GM or Ford put their name on a boat. My hope was that quality of service would match that of their car dealership brethren.

From what I read, Toyota's effort fell short of that and instead relied on a handful of boat dealers who provided varying quality of service.

Some are good, but most are hacks.

[toyotafreak]

Jeff Dorge (left coast service rep) just left my house (!!!!!)

I'll vouch for him.

The reason for his visit was to inspect my wakeboard tower and its mounting issues. As it turns out, it's the correct tower mounted incorrectly. He gave me all the guidance I'll need to get it right, and it doesn't appear that there is any damage to it.

The biggest deals during installation are 1) assemble the tower and then move it until the forward mounting feet are fitting as well as possible, and then 2) mark and drill the inboard screw first. After the inboard screw is in, go back and mark the two outbard ones - tighteneing them down will such the whole foot down to the gelcoat.

Also, he strongly suggests a healthy amount of countersink all around in order to prevent stress cracks.

More on this visit later ;-)

[toyotafreak]

Not that you all sit around waiting to hear about my problems....

Took the tower off and apart this weekend. Pulled all the upholstery to get the boat ready for gelcoat repair and filling of the old tower mounting holes.

In an attempt to sleep better, I tried fitting one of the base pieces a couple nights ago. Unfortunately, the best position I found was only slightly better than what we started with.

In other words, the tower is the wrong tower. It's clearly intended for a 22-footer, but not the Omega-hulled S22/SX.

BTW, I agree that the forward mounting pads sit upon some really thick layup, but in our case, there's no aluminum and no additional plates. I stumbled across another forum discussing loading on towers, and the two failure modes are 1) forward brackets pulling the bolts right through the deck, and 2) stress cracks radiating from the rear brackets. Guess where our stress cracks are? Definitely in need of some reinforcement.

Another BTW: the top portion of the tower was being spead about an inch by the lower pieces, and the port and starboard lower pieces were misaligned laterally by about a 1/4". No wonder the thing's all bent out of shape.

[cyclone]

I think you are getting too worked up about the tower thing. They are made by a dude with a tubing bender, chop saw, and welder. If you're lucky, he owns a tape measure. They don't fit that well, and I think that you will see that the tower will fit once you bolt it down. especially if you do it like they suggest. Use some reinforcement on the back side and crank it down. My hull was 5/8" thick where the tower mounts, so it's stout.

I was an FC in the Nav, got out in 1990.  What did you do? I was on the USS Kalamazoo (razor blades now!)

[toyotafreak]

Here's a pic of the stbd front pad before I took it off. Looks like you could just rotate the thing and be good to go, huh? Nope. Slide it fore and aft? Not much help. Even without a tape measure, a guy who builds towers for a living does a better job than this.

Turned 21 in boot camp (SD) during Desert Storm; 28 weeks avionics training in Memphis; worked in the S-3 Viking RAG squadron in San Diego for 2.5 years; fixed air-launched missiles in Guam for 2 yrs; separated in '96, did a year of active reserves and then cut the cord. Was up for AT1 just before separation. Ended with 18 days on my sea counter (slimy wog).

Fun times back then, huh?

[cyclone]

I would make it fit and send it to the powdercoaters and never look back. Squid.

[toyotafreak]

A wise squid once said...

"The thing is, Toyota boats are built so well that I just don't want to half ass anything, it sticks out..."

Me too.

[toyotafreak]

You guys SO don't want to be at my house this weekend....

[cyclone]

Derek,
Don't know if you are looking for work or not, but my company is hiring and we like ex-Navy guys. It is a great little company, best at what they do. It would probably be a travelling job, unless you live near Alameda, Ca., that's where the factory is and there is work there too. Company is called Cognex. Email me for details if you are interested.