Hi
Is i to be expected that tightening the mast base bolts pulls the track nuts into the tracks, effektivly braking fibers?
I've had the mast in the same position on my Slingshot Levitator 150 since I found the right balance. The track nuts have now crushed themselvs more than 5mm into the tracks.
I have to tighten the bolts on the foil (mainly mast-fuselage), and sometimes on the mastbase, during a session. All bolts have been changed to stainless and coated with tegel.
Should I be worried about breaking the trackbox?
/Jocke
Are you have to re tighten the track bolts because the mast base is slipping out of position ?. I've never had to tighten mine on the Wizard. I've had both the Hoverglide aluminum Phanstasm carbon mast. The Phantasm has a lot more surface area to spread the load. If your crushing the board to keep the base from slipping out of position, I would put an 1/8" SS plate between the mast base and board to spread the load. Might buy you some time.
Couple things.
1. Make sure you are using the right track nuts. Yes, they are supposed to be standard. However, if you happen to use some that are too narrow, they might not offer enough contact area inside the track to prevent damage.
2. Don't use a powered driver tool, or don't use a wrench adapter. Those apply far too much power. Just use a screwdriver-style tool and hand tighten. Should be enough. In the early days of formula racing I saw guys run bolts right through their finboxes with power tools.
To back up the OP, this has been acknowledged by at least one major manufacturer (who uses the cobra factory). It has happened to me as well. I am using the t-nuts, bolts and wrenches supplied by the board manufacturer as well as the same brand foil. This same manufacturer also maintained for a time that torque specs were not needed for foil tracks.
It is possible, and even likely, that a bad batch of tracks was shipped to cobra and so the problem spread out. But Slingshot did not use cobra until this year, so the problem may be even more widespread.
Note that you can't really see the effect. It's caused by the t-nut crushing the track on the inside. But it does affect your ability to slide the mast and place it precisely
5 mm indent in the tracks that's a lot I have never had a problem with the foil base coming loose and I run two different brands of foil on my slingshot board. First thing I did with my board was go one size up on the track bolts the supplied 25 mm? imo are to short so 30mm. I have seen a board that the base bolts came loose and he lost his hoverglide to the deep it also damaged the tracks on the way out. Like others have said just use hand tools I use a T handle you should not have to crank down that hard.The stock slingshot T nuts work just fine.
Bear in mind the load on it too though, its not just doing bolts up.... regardless of tightness it will be trying to rip the rear bolts out so any track defect will cause at least the rears to set into the track plastic or split it
There's tracks and there's tracks when it comes to quality....
If it has deformed the track that much ... 5mm is a lot .... I'd stop using it before it fails totally
If ur in WA i can have a look and show u a few as the quality difference is quite apparent
The t-nuts came with the board when i bought it new. The bolts and L-tool came with the the foil. I've changed the original brittle Ti-bolts to high quality stainless of the same lenght after snapping the ones conecting the fuselage to the mast.
Its a Slingshot Levitator 150 with a i99-foil on a tall mast with 110-115kg of pork sailing it in Sweden.
The mast base bolts have only been tightened up when assembling foil to the board. It has not come loose during sailing as the mast/fuse-boots have. A little dissapointed. Will abuse it till it breaks.
Select to expand quoteKingHippo said..
Its a Slingshot Levitator 150 with a i99-foil on a tall mast with 110-115kg of pork sailing it in Sweden. ...Will abuse it till it breaks.
My 95 kg were too much for Slingshot gear. Bolts were loose after almost every session. When they came out with a "light" track adapter, the one I bought bent in the first session. After three broken fuses, I really did not care how good they warranty was anymore. I've switched to a different brand with more solid engineering and QC, and have not had a single problem since.
20kg more wont help then...
So far it's just bolt that I have broken. It will be worse if I end up pulling the botlts throug the track.
I'll send a question to my "local" (6,5 hours by car) slingshot distributer to look into if there is a good warranty or not.
