Aerial Tower Accessories

[ande2407]

Anyone have any experience with Aerial stuff? I've been looking around for new speakers and racks and such, and found some made by Aerial at www.h2osportswarehouse.com. Prices are pretty good, with racks for <$200. Tough buying stuff without being able to see it, so I thought I would see if anyone has seen or used their stuff before.

thx.

[kutzer]

Yeh I bought the whole package! Aerial Airborne Wakeboard Tower 2.25 inch diameter, Aerial Combo Speaker Pod Blunt Lightbar, and the Aerial Board Rack Bat. Tower works great hardly any side to side sway, Occasionally need to tighten set screws but only after first couple uses! Lightbar Speaker combo is good too! great quality speakers lights are basicly worthless though but they look good! Board Racks are alright, the fingers that hold the boards seem to be a little short and only support about a 1/3 of the board! They also leave black marks on the board from the rubber inserts. Also one of my rubber inserts in the board rack came out which kinda sucks. If I were to do it again I would still buy the tower and the speaker combo and I would find a better quality set of board racks from some other company! But that is just my opinion.

[Sunsetter95]

Yeh I bought the whole package! Aerial Airborne Wakeboard Tower 2.25 inch diameter, Aerial Combo Speaker Pod Blunt Lightbar, and the Aerial Board Rack Bat. Tower works great hardly any side to side sway, Occasionally need to tighten set screws but only after first couple uses! Lightbar Speaker combo is good too! great quality speakers lights are basicly worthless though but they look good! Board Racks are alright, the fingers that hold the boards seem to be a little short and only support about a 1/3 of the board! They also leave black marks on the board from the rubber inserts. Also one of my rubber inserts in the board rack came out which kinda sucks. If I were to do it again I would still buy the tower and the speaker combo and I would find a better quality set of board racks from some other company! But that is just my opinion.

I put the Aerial Airborne tower on my 95. It is solid and doesn't move at all. The only issue with it, and I am trying to get some help from Aerial, is that it does not fold down the way they advertise it to. There is a bend that kicks the tip of the rear leg inward which does not allow the hinge point at the rear legs to rotate without binding on the bolts. Basically they have conflicting angles at that point. It may be that the one I received has been made incorrectly, but that is still up in the air. From my point of view, it is. I can lower it on the front legs but I have to prop it up with a stand which may end up leaving marks in my interior.

Other than that little item, I love it! Looks great on the ol' Sunsetter. Much better that that green thing that was on there. I was considering the new racks that are being sold on ebay, but now I will have to do a bit more investigation. I also need to see how they treat this issue I have now.

Sorry about the long winded statement, but I needed to vent a little.

[kutzer]

It could be a mounting issue or try backing out your set screws on all of your folding pivots and resetting them. When I installed mine we didn't tighten up any of the set screws before hand and made sure it folded down and that the pivots were parallel to the direction it was folding. While in mid-fold we tightened the set screws on the folding pivots this makes sure that the angles are all correct. I also have the problem of when folded down it touches the interior but that is going to be an issue with any tower that folds because it has to sit somewhere. I ended up just using a 2x4 layed perpendicular to the direction of the boat towards the back on top of cover so that the tower sits on the 2x4 rather than the interior when I put it away for the weekend or winter. Towers can be a pain to deal with expecially aftermarket folding ones, its just something you have to deal with if you want a tower. Hope this helps you out with the folding issue.

[Sunsetter95]

It could be a mounting issue or try backing out your set screws on all of your folding pivots and resetting them. When I installed mine we didn't tighten up any of the set screws before hand and made sure it folded down and that the pivots were parallel to the direction it was folding. While in mid-fold we tightened the set screws on the folding pivots this makes sure that the angles are all correct. I also have the problem of when folded down it touches the interior but that is going to be an issue with any tower that folds because it has to sit somewhere. I ended up just using a 2x4 layed perpendicular to the direction of the boat towards the back on top of cover so that the tower sits on the 2x4 rather than the interior when I put it away for the weekend or winter. Towers can be a pain to deal with expecially aftermarket folding ones, its just something you have to deal with if you want a tower. Hope this helps you out with the folding issue.

Yea I tried that. I found that the rear legs are bent inward on an angle making it impossible to get them pointing fore and aft along with perpendicullar.

I have it now set with the side supports in a position where they are parallel with the centerline of the boat (pic 1) but leaning out slightly to meet the angle from the legs. But still, when I fold it down there is about a 3/4" gap due to the conflicting angles (pic 2). I am asking them for some guidence here but Aerial is very slow to resopnd. If I am overlooking something, if they would just tell me, no problem. I still like the tower. In fact, I am going to order a speaker box for it that holds 4-6x9's from Tidal Audio. The Night Vision model without the lights. My some is putting up the $$ for that. Cheers!

[the_dude]

I agree that their board racks suck.

The fingers are too close together and in chop your boards will slap pretty bad at times. I guess longer fingers could also fix this. I would think it wouldn't be that much more in material costs to have a much better designed rack but what do I know.

[kutzer]

Your not gonna like this but your going to have to remove your rear support arm. Put the boat on a level surface then place a Level on your side bar of the tower where the Rear arm was connected and have the level perpendicular to the direction of the boat. Loosen your set screws on the bases of the side bar untill your side bar rear mount is as close to level as you can get it and then tighten your set screws back up. Your next issue is going to be your upper center bar, the holes you drilled are going to be off and you may not be able to fit your rear support arms back in due to the large radius on the bends that aerial has in them this will be a problem because your side arms are now closer to the center of the boat therefore your rear support arms are going to have to push into the center bar further. This is the only problem that I have with the Aerial Tower and I think they should offer a shorter center bar for the top of the tower due to narrower boats which i'm assuming yours is because of the pic of the side bars. But to fix this Center bar issue you may have to cut the ends off of the center bar alittle bit in order to allow the rear support arms to fit properly and the side bar to be level. This is most likely why Aerial hasn't been getting back to you, because the only real fix will be you cutting the center bar and they are not going to tell you that because of the liability of the company, same goes for me! I am not telling you that this is what you have to do, it is just what I would do if I were in your situation and I could not return the tower but I still want it to fold down.

[Sunsetter95]

Your not gonna like this but your going to have to remove your rear support arm. Put the boat on a level surface then place a Level on your side bar of the tower where the Rear arm was connected and have the level perpendicular to the direction of the boat. Loosen your set screws on the bases of the side bar untill your side bar rear mount is as close to level as you can get it and then tighten your set screws back up. Your next issue is going to be your upper center bar, the holes you drilled are going to be off and you may not be able to fit your rear support arms back in due to the large radius on the bends that aerial has in them this will be a problem because your side arms are now closer to the center of the boat therefore your rear support arms are going to have to push into the center bar further. This is the only problem that I have with the Aerial Tower and I think they should offer a shorter center bar for the top of the tower due to narrower boats which i'm assuming yours is because of the pic of the side bars. But to fix this Center bar issue you may have to cut the ends off of the center bar alittle bit in order to allow the rear support arms to fit properly and the side bar to be level. This is most likely why Aerial hasn't been getting back to you, because the only real fix will be you cutting the center bar and they are not going to tell you that because of the liability of the company, same goes for me! I am not telling you that this is what you have to do, it is just what I would do if I were in your situation and I could not return the tower but I still want it to fold down.

No that isn't the case here. I have had the bars straight up. I believe the issue is the rear legs. With the supports parallel and perpendicular to the centerline of the boat, the rear leg joint will no longer mate with the support part of the joint while keeping the joint surfaces together. With mine, and all that you said in place, I have a gap at the bottom of the joint of about a half inch. It looks like to me that the last bend in the rear legs put an inward angle on the end of the legs when it should have been in the rear direction. In fact, if there was no bend at the end of the leg, it looks like to me that it would have lined up almost perfect. Trust me, I have now spent three days trying to adjust it to line up but to no avail.

[kutzer]

Do you have a picture of the tower up? Side view showing the entire tower?

[Sunsetter95]

Do you have a picture of the tower up? Side view showing the entire tower?

[kutzer]

I would call Aerial and H20 watersports and tell them to send you a new set of rear support legs. Now looking at the whole ordeal I would say they put the wrong bend on those rear legs toward the pivot end. Even if you have to pay for new legs I can't imagine it would be much. It's worth a try. I know I got a crap board mount base plate and they took care of it in individal parts and it wasn't a big deal after I finally called both places daily for about 5-6 days till someone would give me a straight answer. Who knows with them! They should send you a whole new tower! Its just a matter of bothering them enough untill they do something about it, you paid good money for that tower and they should back their product.

Good luck man!!

[StCroixRiverGuy]

I must say that tower looks great on your Sunsetter. I just ordered the whole set up for my 93 Echelon based on that picture. Any advice as far as mounting this puppy, your making me a little nervous...... Sounds like th board racks suck, that's a bummer, I ordered one of their new wakesurf/knee board racks as well.

Tim

[jk13]

I must say that tower looks great on your Sunsetter. I just ordered the whole set up for my 93 Echelon based on that picture. Any advice as far as mounting this puppy, your making me a little nervous...... Sounds like th board racks suck, that's a bummer, I ordered one of their new wakesurf/knee board racks as well.

Tim

Welcome to the site!

I think since this thread, he's gotten new rear legs that have fixed the issue. Post up some pics when you get yours on, I'm still shopping for a tower for mine.

[Sunsetter95]

I must say that tower looks great on your Sunsetter. I just ordered the whole set up for my 93 Echelon based on that picture. Any advice as far as mounting this puppy, your making me a little nervous...... Sounds like th board racks suck, that's a bummer, I ordered one of their new wakesurf/knee board racks as well.

Tim

New rear legs didn't fix the issue, I did some modification to them and now folds down perfectly. No binding issue.

Edited February 5, 2010 by Sunsetter95

[Sunsetter95]

Two more....

The board rack are Aerial. If you put a piece of clear vinyl tubing on the middle leg, it stops the board from rattling around and getting marked up.

Edited February 5, 2010 by Sunsetter95

[Sunsetter95]

This shows the gap/binding issue I use to have with them when folding it down.

The after modification speaks for itself.

This fix was easy to do. I spent maybe $10-$15 at Home Depot.

Edited February 11, 2010 by Sunsetter95

[StCroixRiverGuy]

One more question for ya Doug. Did you use any reinforcement behind the fiberglass on the inside? I've heard of people using green treated plywood or 1/4 aluminum. In the instructions it states if it's a 1/4 inch thick fiberglass reinforcement is not needed. I just want your opinion..........

Thanks,

Tim