Installing and reinforcing tower.

[adam355]

I am ordering a monster tower for my 170 sport 92 forester and recently decided to call some shops on installation estimates. Well I find out none of them do it anymore because they've had too many problems with the tower moving and ruining the boats. Well there is one shop I take my boat that will do it, but they've never installed one before. What do I need to make sure they do so I don't have any problems? I'm a little worried here and any links or advice would be great.

[wesgardner]

Adam,

You'll probably find that Monster supplies some very nice backing plates - these are essential to a good install. If the tower feet will mount on a curving surface, the backing plate needs to follow the curve or a "hard spot" will be created and eventually you'll see stress cracking in the form of spider cracks in the gel coat. Another good trick is to OVERSIZE the holes drilled thru the deck a bit so no hard spots develope around the fasteners, use a good sealant. Some folks (like me) use an 1/8" thick piece of rubber between the foot and the deck (on the outside). If the underside is curving, I'll make a convex backing plate out of plywood sealed in epoxy to form-fit to the underside of the deck and then use the tower manufacturer's backing plates, bolts and nuts. Or you can bring it to my shop and I'll help you do it. If the deck at the mounting points is 3/8" or thicker, you'll not have a problem, if it's thinner, make nice big plywood backing plates to spread the load out (or you can glass in additional layers of matt to build ou the deck thickness.

PM or e-mail if you need/want more moral support...

[HHI Dave]

adam355, I installed a Monster on my boat very recently. You don't need to pay someone to do it. Just do it yourself. The instructions from Monster are very clear and easy to follow. I was kind of intimidated too, but once I actually got my hands on it, it was pretty straightforward. Save that money for gas and beer.

In case you haven't already seen it, here's the MT instruction manual. Read it a couple of times. When you actually have the tower in your hands, it will all make sense.

BTW, if you want to save $100.00 on your Monster Tower, ask them for a "blem".

[adam355]

I feel more confident about it now, but I'm just thinking it would be nice to have a shop liable for any future damage on the boat. I dono, I appreciate the advice, it helps a lot.

[Sinkoumn]

I'd rather be liable for something that is going on my boat than a shop - when you do it you know it's done right, when a shop does it they may half ass it, item breaks, you bring it back for them to fix, they do another crapass job fixing it and nobody wins.

DIY for sure, it's really easy - just remember to run the drill in reverse when drilling through the clear coat of the boat (and put tape over the drill site it too)