Dbot5 Swiveling Surf Rack
First off I would like to thank Keith22v for hooking me up with the dbot5 plate wakesurf rack! I have been looking for one all summer and couldn't find ANY. He had one he wasn't using and hooked a fellow Tigé owner up! Thanks again Keith!! ((btw nice touch using crumpled wakeboarding magazine pages for packing! 
))
Precursor: I have a 4'-6" WP Bullet and my dad ordered a 4'-10" WP Bullet for himself since the 4'-6" is just a little small for him. His Bullet came in last night (Thursday) so we desperately needed a home on the tower for the two WP boards. We used to put my board in the port side locker when it wasn't being used to keep it from getting stepped on in the cabin but there is no way two boards would fit in there so we knew we needed a surf rack to store our surfboards.
Here are the two WP surfboards that we have now:
With that being said, on Wednesday evening my dad and I hopped in the boat and tried to figure out where we wanted to mount the new dbot5 surf rack. We were trying to figure out where we could mount the rack so that it wouldn’t interfere with the factory racks. The only option we had was to mount them above the factory racks, but we thought that this would make it pretty difficult to get boards in/out since it doesn’t swivel. At this point we thought to ourselves.. "Selves, wouldn't it be cool if we could mount these racks on the factory swivel so that we would have a surf rack on one side and a wakeboard rack on the other?!"
We started taking apart the factory rack and swivel and removed them from the upright. We also took apart the dbot5 plate rack to get a better look at the plates. Unfortunately the holes the Tigé uses and the holes that dbot5 uses did not line up at all. We expected this. The bummer part of it was that all 8 holes on both plates were off by about ½ of a diameter of each other, meaning that if we tried to use the either of the racks and drill new holes they would have made oblong holes in the plates which we didn’t think would be very sturdy.
So my dad took the Tigé plate and the dbot5 plate to work to see if we could get something machined. He had a ½” aluminum plate at work that was almost perfect. He cut it down, drilled the 4 outside holes to mount the surf racks and then drilled the 4 inside holes to mount the factory swivel. He brought it home and… perfect! The only thing that is left to do is polish out the aluminum plate.
Here is the front of the Tigé plate:
Here is the front of the dbot5 plate:
The holes are ½ diameter off from each other, meaning if we drilled new holes in either plate, they would be oblong and thus would not work.
Here is the back of the Tigé plate:
Here is the back of the dbot5 plate:
We thought that maybe we could cut off the male piece and drill the same holes that are on the back of the factory plate so we could mount the swivel unit on there.. but again the holes were off by about ½ diameter. Not good.
Solution: ½” aluminum plate cut to size and then drilled and tapered the outside holes from the dbot5 rack and drilled the inside holes for the factory swivel unit and assemble.
I can't wait to take it out and test the new board and rack on the water!!!
))Precursor: I have a 4'-6" WP Bullet and my dad ordered a 4'-10" WP Bullet for himself since the 4'-6" is just a little small for him. His Bullet came in last night (Thursday) so we desperately needed a home on the tower for the two WP boards. We used to put my board in the port side locker when it wasn't being used to keep it from getting stepped on in the cabin but there is no way two boards would fit in there so we knew we needed a surf rack to store our surfboards.
Here are the two WP surfboards that we have now:
With that being said, on Wednesday evening my dad and I hopped in the boat and tried to figure out where we wanted to mount the new dbot5 surf rack. We were trying to figure out where we could mount the rack so that it wouldn’t interfere with the factory racks. The only option we had was to mount them above the factory racks, but we thought that this would make it pretty difficult to get boards in/out since it doesn’t swivel. At this point we thought to ourselves.. "Selves, wouldn't it be cool if we could mount these racks on the factory swivel so that we would have a surf rack on one side and a wakeboard rack on the other?!"
We started taking apart the factory rack and swivel and removed them from the upright. We also took apart the dbot5 plate rack to get a better look at the plates. Unfortunately the holes the Tigé uses and the holes that dbot5 uses did not line up at all. We expected this. The bummer part of it was that all 8 holes on both plates were off by about ½ of a diameter of each other, meaning that if we tried to use the either of the racks and drill new holes they would have made oblong holes in the plates which we didn’t think would be very sturdy.
So my dad took the Tigé plate and the dbot5 plate to work to see if we could get something machined. He had a ½” aluminum plate at work that was almost perfect. He cut it down, drilled the 4 outside holes to mount the surf racks and then drilled the 4 inside holes to mount the factory swivel. He brought it home and… perfect! The only thing that is left to do is polish out the aluminum plate.
Here is the front of the Tigé plate:
Here is the front of the dbot5 plate:
The holes are ½ diameter off from each other, meaning if we drilled new holes in either plate, they would be oblong and thus would not work.
Here is the back of the Tigé plate:
Here is the back of the dbot5 plate:
We thought that maybe we could cut off the male piece and drill the same holes that are on the back of the factory plate so we could mount the swivel unit on there.. but again the holes were off by about ½ diameter. Not good.
Solution: ½” aluminum plate cut to size and then drilled and tapered the outside holes from the dbot5 rack and drilled the inside holes for the factory swivel unit and assemble.
I can't wait to take it out and test the new board and rack on the water!!!
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