New Year, New Look! Tower for sale

[jward]

Well I think I'm finally finished and ready for summer. Here is the before and after. I'm very pleased with the result. Once I started with a couple of changes, it kept going. Ended up with a new tower (powder coated), board racks (powder coated), speaker cans (powder coated), new bimini, and new vinyl. Also pulled all graphics and gave the gel coat a nice cut buff and wax. What do you guys think?

[seth]

It looks good. That tower looks way better black than polished. How much did that interior run you?

[jward]

Thanks Seth. I'm very pleased with everything. It was $2100 for installation and all.

[core-rider]

Great face-lift and well worth the money spent! Now we need to get out and use it!

[obd666]

looks good, love the new look tower

[Redreid23]

jward Looks awesome! Sounds like you really bent those tower to make it fit, how it that working? Still no cracks? Do you have any picture of the under side where the tower is mounted on? I am (assuming all goes well) purchasing an 04 SAN FCT this weekend to put on my 03 216. I am still looking for ideas/suggestions on reinforcement.

[surroundsound64]

That looks great! Did you do any heating while bending?

[jbach]

I would love to do something similar with the 220 tower on a 210. About how much headroom did you gain with the 220 tower? You said, the back legs need to come in about 8" and the front 3". Did you redrill mounting holes in the front or back?

[jward]

Quite a few questions here so I will try to address them all on this one post.

Sounds like you really bent those tower to make it fit, how it that working? Still no cracks? Do you have any picture of the under side where the tower is mounted on?
Working great so far. No cracks and actually feels stronger and more stable than the original tower when going over rollers. I'm sure that will change over time. No pictures of the back side but will snap a couple next time I'm in the garage. I just used the backing plates from my old tower.

That looks great! Did you do any heating while bending?
No heating. The aluminum bends very easy. I used a ratchet strap on the front and it bent in like butter. A few inches really is no big deal. I didn't want any stress on the deck though so I didn't simply bend it in with straps, hold it and bolt into place. The trick is to bend and measure over and over until it rebounds to the width you desire. For example, if you need to bend in 3" you may need to ratchet in 6" before its all said and done so that when you release the straps it rebounds to the desired 3" total result. I did it a little at a time. Bend some measure, bend some measure. The rear legs were a different story. It had to come way in. Had to use a set of come alongs. This scared me. Had to bend it in so far it looked distorted. Keep in mind I did all straps above the leg joints. There was no stress on the bolts at the joints that would effect the folding mechanism.

About how much headroom did you gain with the 220 tower? You said, the back legs need to come in about 8" and the front 3". Did you redrill mounting holes in the front or back?
I really didn't measure as far as headroom but there is a good bit more. I had to get a new bimini made for that tower (I used towerbiminis). It is a good bit bigger. I love it for the kids. You will have to drill one large hole for all four legs. This tower is a different mounting system from the older FCT. This one has a cup that sits on the deck with one large hole through the center. A bolt comes from the legs of the tower through the cup and the large hole in the deck you will need to drill. All you do is thread the nut on the bolt and done. Again I used backing plates on the underside.

If anyone is trying this and has questions, message me and I will give you my number.

[jward]

I was looking back through the pics and wanted to clarify something. In one of the pics you see a orange strap around the bottom of the back legs. Again, this is not how I bent them in. When I was mocking everything up, I was still a half inch off, so the bolts coming from the legs were not going through the holes in the deck. I used the strap to help line everything up perfectly.