Question for anyone with Alpha Z tower and Samson racks

[bvaughn]

I am close to pulling the trigger on a set of Samson swivel board racks for my 2011 Tige with Alpha Z tower. I need to know if the tower will collapse all the way with the racks installed. By "all the way" I mean with someone pulling the tower down in the collapsed position to make the collapsed height of the tower as low as possible.

I park my boat in my garage and I have to get my wife get on the trailer and pull the Alpha Z tower down all the way to get it into the garage. If I add two racks I have to make sure that the tower will collapse just as far as a non-racked tower. I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to swivel them to the inside of the boat, but hopefully nothing will prevent the tower from being pulled all the way down.

Thanks for the help!

[Ewok]

I have the factory racks and they allow the tower to collapse, I park my boat in my garage as well, I have an 8' high door.

[wallacmc]

I'm not sure on this one. I don't generally fold the tower.

[91Terminator]

I am close to pulling the trigger on a set of Samson swivel board racks for my 2011 Tige with Alpha Z tower. I need to know if the tower will collapse all the way with the racks installed. By "all the way" I mean with someone pulling the tower down in the collapsed position to make the collapsed height of the tower as low as possible.

I park my boat in my garage and I have to get my wife get on the trailer and pull the Alpha Z tower down all the way to get it into the garage. If I add two racks I have to make sure that the tower will collapse just as far as a non-racked tower. I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to swivel them to the inside of the boat, but hopefully nothing will prevent the tower from being pulled all the way down.

Thanks for the help!

Call Nelems Marine they sell a lot of samson racks on there towers.

[Ewok]

The Samson racks bolt onto the same positions as the factory racks, and they are close in size, they should allow the tower to fold no problem. Look at how to fold the tower video on tige.com, that will give you a good idea of how where they go when you fold the tower.

[bigpappa]

I have the Samson swivel racks on my alpha Z tower and the tower folds all the way down with the racks swiveled in.

[bvaughn]

Thanks for the replies everyone. I called Samson today and talked to Tia, and she made some phone calls for me. She found out that the tower would collapse all the way with the Samson racks rotated all the way into the inside of the boat.

I went ahead and ordered a set of racks - one wake/surf and the other wake/wake.

Thanks to wallacmc for the help!

[wallacmc]

No problem. I can't wait to get mine out there and try them out as well. That is good information to know in case I ever get the crap cleaned out of my garage and decide to store it indoors.

[Vicseek]

awesome! Should be nice! post pics when done!

I like my stock swing wakeboard racks however I definatly see a pair of these Samson racks in my future. A wake/surf set of fingers are getting machined for my existing rack as we speak.

[dancojoe]

Samson makes some of the higest quality stuff out there. I've had alot of experience with installing other manufacturer's racks and IMO Samson's quality is the best. There customer service is top knotch as well.

[knelems]

Samson also repairs the spinners if you ever forget to swing in your forks like several of our customers have done over the past few years, hitting boat house uprights with their boards and locking up the spinners.
I think they repaired four for us last year, not cheap but not as expensive as a whole new unit.

[bvaughn]

Sorry to bump this thread after a couple weeks, but I received the Samson racks, and got them installed. The tower does collapse completely down so the boat still fits in my garage.

The only issue I had is that I had a really hard time tightening the racks completely to the tower. I retapped the holes like the directions said, but I'm not sure that my tap was long enough. The bolts got very, very tight before the rack was flush against the tower. It took a lot of work, but I finally got them tightened all the way.

They look great, and I'll try to get some pictures posted of my boat with the new racks.

[Duncan]

I think they repaired four for us last year, not cheap but not as expensive as a whole new unit.

It took another read through to realize you had four repaired for your customers and NOT that you smacked your own boat four times At first I thought, hmmm, woulda thought that lesson learned the first time

In full disclosure, first time our RZ2 ever went out, I pulled into the (narrow) slip with the racks out and fully loaded. Not pretty.

[knelems]

Hi Duncan,
We just sent another spinner back for repair for another customer last week, boat houses are a killer on the racks.Samson must have a special tool to open up the spinner part to repair, our guys couldn't get it open w/o tearing it up.

[Grebva3]

Spinners are very repairable for DIY. I ordered handle, spring, ball bearing, they send the new cap from Samson their customer service is spot on. You have to drill a small hole in cap to access bolt.