Tower's Is Cracked On Both Sides

[T-DUB XTP 0]

My name is Tony Williams, most people call me T-DUB, I am the founder of XTP and the President of XTP and Monster Tower.

 

Just to clarify our relationship with Metcraft.....We did not purchase the company, we only hired the former key employees of Metcraft and own the rights and patents associated with Metcraft's towers. With this being said XTP is not able take care of warranty expenses from Metcraft. We do have plans to start manufacturing the EVO towers in the future but currently don't have a date set for that. For now all I can offer is advice and suggestions.

 

WakeDoc is correct in saying that the tower can be welded, in fact the towers are welded together if four locations. h20king is correct in saying that welding on castings creates problems....the heat changes the molecular structure of the aluminum around the weld, this is compensated by internal supports inside the castings. Point is, depending on where your crack is located on the tower it potentially can be re-welded. We will be happy to help anyone in determining if a tower can be fixed or not, just call Cody in my customer service office at 865-981-9898.

 

tank222,

Give Cody a call, seeing how you still have the piece that broke off we may be able to grind some bevels on the tab and weld it back on......I just need to have Cody get with engineering and make sure it can be done and what it would cost. I know it will work but can't guarantee for how long. Seeing how your broken part is on the base you can take the base off the deck and send it directly to us for repair.

[CenturionSkier 43]

Wow,

That was a refreshing post. Good to hear from someone in charge of a company and is willing to try to help out.

 

We should all stand up and applaud Tony for coming on and making this post. :clapping:

[WakeDoc 471]

Welcome to the Crew T-DUB, great of you to come by and explain this to everyone. The recession had produced some issues between companies that will be hard to resolve. To me it is a matter of whether or not the companies work together to make sure the customers future and past are taken care of. With a community like the CenturionCrew it gives the individual boats owners, dealers, manufactures a place to come together and find solutions. I like CenturionSkier suggest not only applaud Tony/T-DUB but, all the members of the community.

 

[islander033 2]

I'm happy to hear this news as well since I just got a new to me EVO tower.

[tank222 2]

Thanks T dub I've actually have been working with Cody and he has all my info and pictures i'll give him another call this afternoon and see what we can do thanks for the support.

[h20king 794]

my last words on this one.tank you get what you pay for.shure you can grind a bevell and spool gun in some metal and it will hold for a while but it will break again.boats flex towers once installed on a boat become part of the structure your tower is broke at the base where flex is greatest.i am pleased someone is trying to help you out but i am affraid we will be hearing from you again. is it to much to ask for a quallity product made in america with nice welds should look like a stack of dimes and quality powercoat should be thick and shiny.we spend a lot of money for and on our boats they are important to us and the people we share them with yet we still get parts put on our boats made by the cheapest supplier .thanks for letting me rant

[T-DUB XTP 0]

Thanks for the props guys, I appreciate it. The economy has really slammed the marine industry and a dozens of industry suppliers have gone down leaving guys like tank222 with two parts and no solution.......so here is the solution for EVO tower owners who have cracks.

 

Send pictures of your cracked tower to Cody @ cfarmer@xtremetowers.com and we will determine if the crack is in a location that can be re-welded.

 

If the crack can be re-welded we will provide instructions for you to give your local welding shop to ensure it is done correct. XTP can do the repairs if you live close enough to Knoxville TN to bring it to us on the boat. Shipping us the tower LTL freight is NOT an option unless you build a full wood crate around it, otherwise the freight company will destroy it for sure!

 

Fixing a cracked EVO tower is very expensive and will cost more than the EVO towers Great Lakes Skipper is selling, so if he has your model you might want to get it while he still has some.

 

If you do get a GLS tower be specific on how it is shipped to you, it will need a full wood crate built around it. Make sure you open the crate and inspect the tower before the driver takes off and you can't reject the shipment, otherwise you will spend months trying to get your money back from the freight company. Don't forget that part, after building over 100,000 towers I can assure you that is good advise.

 

If we determine the tower is cracked in a location that is not repairable (which is around the original welds or on a tab like tank222) you will need to get another tower. If you don't have the bank to get a new tower just take it off the boat and use the boat without the tower until you can get a new one.....it's not worth the risk of the tower cracking all the way!!

 

If we determine the cracking on these towers is derived from workmanship and can be avoided with manufacturing process controls we will start building EVO's in the future, but that could take awhile so seek the alternative options above.

 

Hope this helps.............I'm sure it's not the solution you wanted to hear but it is better than no solution.

[T-DUB XTP 0]

my last words on this one.tank you get what you pay for.shure you can grind a bevell and spool gun in some metal and it will hold for a while but it will break again.boats flex towers once installed on a boat become part of the structure your tower is broke at the base where flex is greatest.i am pleased someone is trying to help you out but i am affraid we will be hearing from you again. is it to much to ask for a quallity product made in america with nice welds should look like a stack of dimes and quality powercoat should be thick and shiny.we spend a lot of money for and on our boats they are important to us and the people we share them with yet we still get parts put on our boats made by the cheapest supplier .thanks for letting me rant

 

 

You make a good point, fixing a broken tower does not guarantee it will not break again, like i said we don't know if these failures are from workmanship, materials, or design.

 

By the way, all of Metcraft's towers were made in America, castings and assembly.

 

Quality is remembered long after cost is forgotten!!!!!

[tank222 2]

If you look at the base you can see why it would crack the amount of metal that is left after drilling the hole to put the bolt through is minimum and that is where the most stress would be placed. Cody has pictures i'll try to get some better one's taken I have to take the tower off the boat first hope fully I can get to it this weekend.

[Packrat 13]

It sounds like the tower problem in this case is not anything the owner could have done anything to prevent.

 

On the other hand I heard from another guy about allowing his son to sit on the top of his tower. (Nautique) I told him not to allow that any more and no pulling tubes from the tower either. Also for those of you who Hydrofoil or do other extreme sports I would highly recommend using a quick release of which there are several out there. It will protect both you, the tower and your equipment. I rode with a guy once who wrapped the rope around his foil and bent the foil (cost for new foil about $500) and a new rope too.

[h20king 794]

price is what you pay value is what you get dub my question for you would be why make a cast tower ?metal comes in grades and cast is at the bottom.the same shapes can be made from tube aircraft grade like most use. im not shure if still in effect but nautique had or has the pattent on welded towers were cast towers produced in an effort to get around paying nautique royalties?

[tank222 2]

Here are some better pictures.

[tank222 2]

The last pic is of the right side, rest are of the left side.

[Roy 0]

Real curious to know how many people are having problems with their tower, I have the evo tower on an 08. Thinking i should go to storage, and have a good look at my tower, better to find if there,s a problem now than in spring. Who all has found anything wrong, is this just one or two bad castings or a whole bunch. Thanks Roy

[Carter13 69]

With these recent pics it sure doesn't look like there is much meat there.

I am not sure I would trust any of those evo towers from not cracking or breaking.

As far as welding I think it is a short term fix.

Good luck with that.

[T-DUB XTP 0]

price is what you pay value is what you get dub my question for you would be why make a cast tower ?metal comes in grades and cast is at the bottom.the same shapes can be made from tube aircraft grade like most use. im not shure if still in effect but nautique had or has the pattent on welded towers were cast towers produced in an effort to get around paying nautique royalties?

 

 

I have made pipe towers for over 14 years, it has been over 10 years since I started XTP and we have built 120,000 pipe towers out of 6463T6.

 

Metcraft was a competitor of mine and they went out of business, we started making one style of cast towers to help out a customer. Point is that I don't have any responsibility ties going back these broken EVO towers..........All I am doing is stepping up to the plate and offering expert advise for free to guys who don't have a place to get it now that Metcraft is no longer around. Even if we are able to fix tank's tower it is not worth my time, money, and energy vs. what we will charge him, but I'm cool with that because we want to help seeing how there is no other solution for these guys.

[h20king 794]

dub think you took it wrong i realize you guys use tube my brother is a dealer and we have installed your products on customers boats.my question is why would someone make a cast tower to begin with when the same shapes can be made with tube which is much stronger thanks

[WakeDoc 471]

I for one love the looks of the cast tower, the only reason we have a double up tower on our boat is because of the head clearance on the Evo. After seeing how much taller the Gladiator tower is, the next boat will have one. My last boat had an Illusion X from Malibu, we never had an issue with it, no head room and hated that. I will go back to what CenturionSkier said, how many of these towers are truly cracking? If one cracks, that owner will come looking for answers and most likely end up here asking questions like tank222. I was involved with Malibu's for years and would hear of an occasional tower having issues. But, then again I have heard of just as many problems with all of the tube towers on the market. All products no matter what they are have failures, I think that everyone is getting way to worried about the issue. If this was a wide spread problem we would be hearing from a lot more owners. Just my $.02

[tank222 2]

I think I just got the break I needed, I'll keep you guys up dated when I find out more.

 

Thanks for all the help from all of you guys.

[tank222 2]

Just talked to Les Clark at fine line east and he has two tower bases left, he is dropping them in the mail.

 

That just shows how much forums can really help, thanks for all the help guys.