|
Our 2005 Malibu VLX came with the manual wedge. We love the wake with the wedge and don't have nearly enough fat sacs/pumps to get a comparable wake without it. After a year or two, our original wedge foil broke. Bolts failed and the thing bent like a pretzel. I guess it was a pretty common problem, so Malibu replaced it with a 3 bolt foil (instead of 2 bolt). Nice.
Fast forward to 2014 and our three bolt wedge failed. I called Malibu and they said it was the first three bolt wedge they had heard of failing. "Sorry not our problem." The price of a new wedge foil (just the foil, not the mount!) was something insane like 850 dollars. No way was that going to happen. I took the old wedge off and we kept riding without it, but the wake was just not the same. Luckily my dad is a mad scientist and has the spare time of a recently retired man. Since the breaks were mirror images of each other, he took the unbroken arms, drilled out the sheared bolts, retapped the threads, and combined it into one frankenwedge. One side has 3 bolts, the other was too mangled in the middle hole, so just has the two outer bolts. I was skeptical that it would hold up, but we have used it for probably ten sets now and it's still alive. Any time we get out of this one is a bonus to me. Whenever this one fails, I'll probably buy more sacs and pumps instead of an 850 dollar wedge.
Just a heads up to any Malibu owners--save your broken wedges! You might be able to team up with a friend to make one working one.
|
Threaded Mode