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Wedge Failure


bjgreenbucknell

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So has anyone seen this before? I searched online here and it seems to be rare...

2010 VTX with manual wedge. One weld failed and then it bent like crazy. It wasn't clear when it happened (somehow!).

I went to put the wedge down, and the pin on one side wouldn't work, figured it was just stuck, and then when I was riding I was able to see it was a much larger problem. It almost seems like it failed in the UP position, because I can't understand for the life of me how someone could have pulled the wedge up and not noticed this!

https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B035oqs3qD5Gri

Edited by bjgreenbucknell
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Sadly there are a number of reports of some models of the wedge failing in a spectacular way. The search on the site isn't the greatest, so try running this query via google for more info:

https://www.google.com/#q=wedge+broken+site:themalibucrew.com (edited for a "clickable" link)

It was/is common for a specific generation to fail on one side and the force ends up ripping the assembly apart. Some people would get the wedge up and find the foil mangled, while others would be missing the foil completely and have bent support arms. I have no idea if Malibu has covered any of these failures under warranty since 1) it never happened to me, and 2) I just ran the search, but didn't read through all the results. Let us know what the end result is.

Edited by mikeo
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I don't think it has been common for the weld to fail on the newer wedges. I never had the issue with my manual wedges on my 2001 SSVLX or on my 2006 WSVLX, but there were plenty of threads where there was a fail, but I believe that most of those involved bolts, not a weld.

I assume you didn't hit anything? Maybe someone else will chime in with some different info, but again I'm not aware of weld failure before.

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Hey nope didn't hit anything! I gave the wedge a good look to see if maybe I had hit something floating in the water, but it doesn't have a scratch on it... I guess it's just bad luck then.

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My neighbor looks like his wedge has a similar failure, but its bolted like obski mentioned. I'm not sure if he hit something or if the bolt just sheared off. Maybe this winter I will take a look at the bolts on mine.

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That's very unusual to have a weld fail like that, and like others, we've never seen it. As others mentioned years ago the 2-fastener wedge foil had some fasteners fail from bad fasteners, and they also went to a 3-fastener arrangement.

One question, when you said "one pin wouldn't work" - does that mean you when tried to release the wedge from the up position the pin didn't slide?

Peter

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Hi peter, yep, one pin wouldn't slide. It turns out it was because the whole thing was bent, you just couldn't tell from above and it had never occurred to me that it could be that broken!

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