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How would you fix this PTM rack


Slurpee

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So I had to pull my two older PTM clamping racks off the tower due to them being hazard. 

No matter if they are secured very well with the pin they’ll rotate freely from stop to stop while underway. As you can imagine that’s a lobotomy waiting to happen. One near miss was enough.

So you can see in the photos below how the pin has a chamfer that goes all the way to the tip of the hole. And how the hole has been  rounded over at the lip. 

I’m hoping a machinist has some ideas. 
 

image.thumb.jpg.8082f55009769afbe0ae510e3262321b.jpg

image.thumb.jpg.8082f55009769afbe0ae510e3262321b.jpg

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You can order new pin w/ wear button and a new pin spring for these.  I just took mine apart and replaced both those parts and solved my rack not staying "clicked" into place.  Not sure if your issues are the same as mine were but thought I'd mention it.

https://www.malibuparts.com/products/spinning-rack-pull-pin

https://www.malibuparts.com/products/board-rack-spring

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I have been cussing mine as well. IIWM, I would clean the faces up and drill the holes to the same diameter all of the way in. Remove the chamfered sleeves and replace them with non chamfered sleeves. So you have to to purposely pull down farther to get them to disengage, big deal. Good luck. 

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The pins are pretty much clean.  It's the plates on the rack with the messed up aluminum. 

Thanks for the links.  I'll order some new buttons and a pair of pins to experiment for grins.  The buttons on mine are flush with the end of the pins.  That is they are worn all the way down. 

I'm honestly considering taking about 1/16" or so of aluminum off the end of the pin so it sinks further in the hole and actually mates positively with the walls.  Maybe the tolerances weren't good enough for that when they designed these so they have a sloped surface on purpose.  Or there is another good reason.  But aluminum is too soft I think.  You can see what happens over years of use.  Look at the new clamping racks and you can see PTM recognized this and changed the design to use a steel plate in a mortise.  I have a set of those to.

Springs..... That's a thought.  I pulled mine out and gave them a good stretch.  Maybe some more rebound.  Initial monkeying with the hardware is promising.  I'll get them reassembled and mounted and put a board on and see if they hold well.  It'd be nice if a hard stretch on the springs would make them useable again.  I'd like to touch the whole design though and make it better.  I'll order those spare parts to play with.

More results soon....

 

 

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I was chatting with Ronnie about that.  I like that idea a bunch.  Opening the holes out a bit and putting a sleeve down into them of stainless.  I need someone with a machine shop for that though.  Metal working isn't in my bag of tricks.

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I would call PTM.  They are really great to work with and have exceptional customer service.  I would imagine they would give you a killer deal on a new one or you could send it back to them for repair. I ordered the pull nob from them they sent the new style and when I called them they corrected their mistake and sent me 2 of the older knobs.  I also was going to order the bracket for my g4 tower for the new racks I just bought and they were going to give me great pricing for the brackets.  I decided to make the G5 tower brackets work and did not order them.

 

Yeah looks like they changed the design, I bet they would be able to get you the new designed ones at a minimal charge

 

2018 older rack new design

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2022 design

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Edited by anutami
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On 6/2/2022 at 12:53 PM, Slurpee said:

So I had to pull my two older PTM clamping racks off the tower due to them being hazard. 

No matter if they are secured very well with the pin they’ll rotate freely from stop to stop while underway. As you can imagine that’s a lobotomy waiting to happen. One near miss was enough.

So you can see in the photos below how the pin has a chamfer that goes all the way to the tip of the hole. And how the hole has been  rounded over at the lip. 

I’m hoping a machinist has some ideas. 
 

image.thumb.jpg.8082f55009769afbe0ae510e3262321b.jpg

image.thumb.jpg.8082f55009769afbe0ae510e3262321b.jpg

image.jpg

Slurpee,

 

Unfortunately those are very old racks, probably around 2014 or 2015ish and PTM does not have anything to correct your issue. If you look at the last few pictures, we have since added a thin metal plate and a different style swivel plate with release  pull knob. If you ever wanted to purchase the newer style swivel I can give you a deal on them.  Our newest style is also shown here but those would only work with the surf racks and not the wake racks like you have. I realize t his sounds confusing so if you want to chat about your options give me a call. 865-425-0600 x 124

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I pulled the racks apart.  Cleaned them of contaminants, stretched out the springs pretty well (I was hopeful about that for a while), and touched one of the holes that had less warping (or spalling, or whatever the term is correctly) with a file to clean up the lip.  Sucker still breaks free from it's position pretty easily.  I guess it's in PTM's hands to save this or I find a machinist to help out.  I'll update the thread with what I hear back from them when I do.

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  • 2 weeks later...

For the record, PTM does not have any parts in inventory at all for the first generation of PTM clamping racks.  These would be the silver ones with the pull pin knob on the top.  There are some spares of the next iteration that were a darker grey anodize with the pull knob on the bottom.  They're looking to see if they have enough of the right parts to get my pair of racks back in function.  More to follow as the search continues.

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I wanted to say that Jason (Jibby here on tmc) at PTM is truly a customer focused professional.  It turns out that the only way to get the racks working again is to get a new mount and the new plates from the style with the knob facing down.  To make them look right he got them sandblasted and re-anodized in the same bright silver, not the grey.   We had to work out a price, but I am very pleased.  And it won't happen again with the new(er) design of the PTM racks this will adopt.  If you need support out of warranty with Malibu on your PTM gear, then send Jibby a PM here on the site for help.  That'll be faster than calling the main line at PTM.

 

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