cracked tower

Man, my boat (a 1999 star) has been problematic this season. Today, I found a crack in my tower, right on a weld seam. Has anyone else with a zero flex flyer experienced something similar? I had two cracks on weld seams last season, which I blamed on the boom I'd installed, but this one can't be blamed on anything other than wakeboarding. Luckily, I know a really good welder (the cracks he fixed last season are fine) but he's two hours away and the down time will suck.

Welds will always crack right at the edge of the weld. Look for more with an inspection kit. Downtime will be much worse if something breaks on the lake.
Think of it as a plus. "I cut so hard that the tower eventually broke". Yes, lame but I used the same thought process when my son put a hockey puck through the garage door and it saved my from having to kill him.

If you had two cracks last year from extra stress, maybe this was a weak spot from last year and just finally opened up?

Where are you at, maybe someone knows a welder that isn't 2hrs away? Have you checked craigslist, etc? Welding is pretty common nationwide.

Originally Posted by JohnAr

If you had two cracks last year from extra stress, maybe this was a weak spot from last year and just finally opened up?

Where are you at, maybe someone knows a welder that isn't 2hrs away? Have you checked craigslist, etc? Welding is pretty common nationwide.

I'm in Philly. The welder who did the first repair is an old family friend in the Harrisburg area who lives 2 houses down from my parents, and he's freaking amazing. The good news is that my dad's coming to Philly tomorrow to do a bit of riding (he's a skier so going off the pylon is preferable to him anyway) and he'll take the boat back with him. I remember calling around last year to find someone local, but nobody seemed too interested once they heard that the tower was aluminum.

Shielding gas on aluminum tube is tricky since you only have access to the outside. Even good looking welds can be O2 rich which makes them brittle. Ideally the tubes should be purged with argon and air kept out when welding. Stresses are high if you're pulling tubes or large wakeboarders or slalom skiers for that matter!

I picked up my boat this weekend and am back in business. My tower is now kinda taking on Frankensteinish look. When my new MDC 1600 gets here and I have gauges again I'll really be living large!

We constantly had cracks in our 99 and 2000 x star towers. Both the original zeroflex towers. That particular tower is prone to that. We ended up adding triangular gussets to the problem areas and that seemed to help.

That tower as mentioned was prone to some stress cracks at the welds. Rumor has it it was due to the fact it was a "zero flex" flyer. It was real stiff and rigid. I know that doesn't make sense as you want a sturdy tower but some give is needed.

I think I'm going to pull tubers off the pylon from now on (just what we all needed - another reason to hate tubes!), and if it cracks again I'll have my guy add some gussets. That's a good idea, and the problem does seem to be isolated to two particular areas.