Towing with a Monster Tower. Setup or collapsed?

ganzo93 · Newbie Joined: 06 May 2003 Posts: 6 City: Oklahoma City

I recently finished installing a Monster Tower on my boat and tried it out for the first time yesterday. Loved it.

The lake we normally ride on is about a one hour drive from home and I tow around 65 to 70 miles/hour. Yesterday, I towed with the tower setup. But, it collected plenty of bug guts while we were driving. When I collapse the tower to put the boat in the garage, I use life jackets and folded towels to cushion the tower and try to keep it from getting scratched up really bad.

It would be nice to tow to the lake with the tower collapsed to keep it from getting splattered with so many bugs, but I'm not sure if it would cause me any problems.

Those of you with collapsible towers, do you tow with it up or down?

Thanks,
Steve

salmon_tacos · Posted: Jun 16, 2003 7:26 am Post subject:

I don't actually ever tow my boat but I have an idea for you:

I don't know if it's possible with your setup but I think the ideal thing is to fold the tower down against some kind of padding, whether it is rubber stuck to the tower, roll bar padding, or whatever, an then strap it down tight with some cheap velcro straps that you can get at West Marine or probably at the hardware store. That would keep it from bouncing around and banging into stuff.

The way mine folds down, I strap it to the bow rails. I have permanently adhered rubber pads at the exact contact points.

Shawn Madison · Posted: Jun 16, 2003 8:05 am Post subject:

mnwakeboarder · Posted: Jun 16, 2003 9:08 am Post subject:

Hey Ganzo what type of boat did you install the monster tower on? I'm ready to install mine but I think I need to add more fiberglass backing to my boat (Glastron GX185)

ganzo93 · Newbie Joined: 06 May 2003 Posts: 6 City: Oklahoma City

It's installed on a Celebrity 180. If you go to the Monster Tower website and look at the customer photos section, there is a picture of one labeled Jason Pati's Celebrity. Our's looks very similar to that, just a different color. We mounted the tower in almost the exact same locations as on that boat.

Our Celebrity is not the best wakeboarding boat in the world, but it's a boat and we hope to upgrade to a good inboard in a couple of years.

As far as reinforcement goes, when I drilled the holes, the fiberglass measured at least 3/8" or more in all locations, so according to the installation instructions I didn't have to reinforce. But being the paranoid engineer that I am, I did anyway. I figured it was better to overkill than to screw up my boat. At all four mount points, I used a 4" X 12" piece of 1/2" thick plywood. The rear mounts were on a curved surface, so I filled the air space behind the plywood with Bondo to make sure there was no gap. If you do anything like this, make sure you put plastic tarps down to protect the interior of your boat. The Bondo went everywhere when I squished it in place and secured it with the bolts. If I hadn't put plasitc down, it would have gotten in the carpet and everywhere else. The front mount points were pretty flat from underneath, so I simply used 3M 5200 marine adhesive to secure the plywood in place.

One piece of advise. Don't forget the Never-Seez on any of the stainless hardware. I accidentally missed one. The nut seized to the bolt, the bolt bent and then broke. Don't make my same mistake. Monster Tower has been a great company so far. When I broke the bolt, I sent them an e-mail, told them what I had done, and asked them if they knew of any place where I could buy a replacement bolt. They never responded to that e-mail electronically, but a few days later I received a package from them 2nd-day Air that contained 3 replacement bolts and another tube of Never-Seez. They seem really willing to help their customers, even when it's their customer who makes the stupid mistake like I did! I would recommend them to any of my friends if they were looking for a tower. So far, I've been positively impressed.