warning: Skylon "shocker" triple forks & 2015 G3.2 tower

[mikeo]

All, I'm a fan of the replacement "shocker" forks that Skylon released for the G3 towers a few years ago:

http://www.skylonsports.com/shop/wakeboard-racks/racks-forks-shocker.html

When I ordered my '15 23 LSV I called Skylon and asked if they were going to update the forks from the polished/brushed chrome finish to the anodized finish; the feedback I received was that they were working on it and the parts would be available in the spring. (I ordered my boat last fall.) Well, I just received 4 sets of forks and unfortunately have run in to two problems:

1. The Skylon "shocker" forks are still the polished/brushed "bright" metal that doesn't match the new anodized finish Malibu is using.

2. The holes in the forks are .2" off and won't mount to the 2015 rack; I've only tried the fixed rack, not the spinner.

I'm not digging on Skylon here, I like what they have to offer and they've been "in the game" longer than most. This post is to serve as fair warning to anyone else looking to upgrade their '15 G3.2 racks to hold 2x wake boards and 1x surfboard each.

I'm calling Skylon in the morning to discuss with them if a new version will be in the works or (I hope not) there wasn't enough volume to justify making new updated parts. I'll update the forum with the information I get from Skylon, but hopefully I can save somebody from a headache with their board racks.

[mikeo]

Update:

1. The Skylon "shocker" forks are still the polished/brushed "bright" metal that doesn't match the new anodized finish Malibu is using.

* I think I found the vendor that Malibu is using to anodize parts; I was able to find out that the vendor should be/is in California as the G3 series racks are still being machined in Merced along with G3/G3.2 tower construction. I'm taking my forks to the vendor next week to have them anodized to match the factory parts. If I'm able to confirm that they are a vendor to Malibu and I can state that publicly then I'll provide an update. I'll also update the thread on how well the color matching is (with pictures).

2. The holes in the forks are .2" off and won't mount to the 2015 rack; I've only tried the fixed rack, not the spinner.

* The key difference here was the spinner rack vs. the fixed rack; The forks fit just fine on the spinner rack. The reason the forks fit on the spinner rack is that the spinner has 2x .1" plastic washers so there isn't metal on metal for the spinner. I went to the local hardware store (Ace Hardware) and found plastic washers that are slightly thicker than .1" and put them on all 4 bolts in the fixed rack. I found that I needed to mount the forks to the crossmember and then bolt the crossmember to the slider assembly to get everything to go together easily; this may be due to the washers being thicker than .1"

I've got to give a big shout out to Eric at Skylon he was willing to take my rack forks back and do some machining work to make everything fit, luckily we were able to avoid that and everything fits now.