E2 tower - check your welds

[ski_antique]

Safety alert-check your E2 towers- pictures from a two month old 2018 rzx. These are the top welds.





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[Germaine Marine]

Man you just cant catch a break can you bud.....

[LTWellman]

Suks. Thanks for the heads up. Hope you get it fixed quickly.

[TigeFamily]

Gotta stop pulling those tubes from the tower! Just kidding, man that really sucks. Good you caught that, crazy how you can see that clean crack all the way thru and going around

[ski_antique]

Man you just cant catch a break can you bud.....

I know! LOL. (FYI, tubes have been off limits on our boats for at least 5 years)...one of those "rules written in blood" lessons.

[outkastmunkey]

Safety alert-check your E2 towers- pictures from a two month old 2018 rzx. These are the top welds.





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That's what you get for pulling 5 tubes from it! J/K that sucks


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[freeheel4life]

Ouch. Thank goodness for warranty. Hopefully you aren't off the water long.

[KEH]

WOW
This is going to be a BIG deal unless it is an isolated case.
Hope that's the situation for TIGE's sake and a lot of E2 owners.

[JLG]

If memory serves me right I believe my dealer had a boat do that also. Think Tige had the MFG of these new towers come out to his shop and install new tower on site. Think it was something with the company that makes them and not Tige's fault by any means other then trusting this company to produce their towers. Pretty sure they guys that came out to install were there a day or less and new tower was on. Perhaps you will get same treatment so good luck!

[UNSTUCK]

If memory serves me right I believe my dealer had a boat do that also. Think Tige had the MFG of these new towers come out to his shop and install new tower on site. Think it was something with the company that makes them and not Tige's fault by any means other then trusting this company to produce their towers. Pretty sure they guys that came out to install were there a day or less and new tower was on. Perhaps you will get same treatment so good luck!

I think I've said this before, but besides from fiberglass what can Tige (or any tow boat company) control? They really are at the mercy of all of these outsourced products' manufacturers. I would hate to be a business owner that depended on the quality of other business' parts to keep my business afloat (pun intended).

[Jetdriver]

Crazy! I wonder what is putting enough stress on it to crack the welds like that?! My tower, which isn’t an E2, twists a bit as you raise and lower it. It has t caused any issues on mine but perhaps this is happening here.

[freeheel4life]

I am far from a materials science guy, and a very amateur welder, but my best WAG is underpenetration in the weld. Two pieces aren't actually fused(welded) together they just got stuck together with the bead that got ran between base and arm of tower.

[KEH]

Do you tow often with the tower down?

[Germaine Marine]

I would think its a fabrication issue rather then a tow tower down, pull tubers etc issue. Its Isolated which leads me to believe it just had some fab issues. They arent made in house so I am sure they will look at it and know right away once fixed. My guess is hurricane sends someone over to look at it.

[UNSTUCK]

I am far from a materials science guy, and a very amateur welder, but my best WAG is underpenetration in the weld. Two pieces aren't actually fused(welded) together they just got stuck together with the bead that got ran between base and arm of tower.

From the looks of it I would say they used the "tack-tack" welding procedure...which isn't a procedure at all and in this case should get a guy fired. This is where they start welding and build a pool, then stop, reposition and start welding again, over and over. This is a poor, but easy way to build up the "stack of dimes" everyone wants to see. However, that constant starting and stopping leads to a poor weld. If this is in fact the case, then it only makes sense that their weldor is using this technique on all the towers, so we will see this a lot in the future.

The weld height is pretty high, suggesting poor penetration, but normally you will see the weld and the base metal pull away from each other. This is not the case here. The weld held strong to the base metal. Cracks down the middle also suggest a high vibration situation, but I don't see that at this location. It really needs to be cut open or x-rayed to know what happened (or ask the weldor what he did).

One thing is for sure: Great looking welds can and do fail. Bird poop welds can and do last a lifetime. I have welded plenty of both of those and spend a lot of time each month inspecting welds, looking for cracks.