Launching wheels Zodiac -

[Haraka]

G'day All,

Do you know where I can "source" the aluminium leg that is in the attached image? Picked off an earlier post.


Short of paying a samll fortune fo rth eoriginals which are too small in width.

Any tips gratefully recieved.

 

[ssobol]

Re: Launching wheels Zodiac -

There are various companes that sell extruded aluminum "erector" sets which allow you to make a wide variety of objects. I have seen these used to make a number of fairly heavy duty assmblies.

They sell the extrusions in various sizes and have all sorts of fittings and fasteners.

You can probably come up with a nice replacement.

See:

http://www.8020.net/Default.asp

 

[abdiver7777]

Re: Launching wheels Zodiac -

There are a couple used sets of these on Ebay right now.......

Just search. "inflatable boats" "used"

 

[riverandocean]

Re: Launching wheels Zodiac -

are you looking simply for the small aluminum bracket that your red arrow points to? or are you looking for the whole leg?

The photo is from my set of wheels, and to be honest some box aluminum and aluminum angle with a slot cut in it would allow you to duplicate these wheel legs very cheaply. Don't know why I didn't think of that myself.

riverandocean

 

[0976claxton]

Re: Launching wheels Zodiac -

i bought the exact same wheels from a guy on craigslist. they ended up not fitting on my futura because the speed tubes are in the way. i didn't really consider the speedtube issue when I bought them, so I took them down to a local welding shop. they had aluminum tubing on hand. i would recommend you try that avenue. hit up your local welder or metal supply store. I would also recommend that you really tighten those bolts up on your brackets. I ended up twisting my aluminum when I turned my boat too sharply while wheeling it to the beach. The turning radius is not good on those things and it puts a lot of strain on the aluminum. i ended up mounting stainless steel angle iron to the back of the transom and using quick release pins that go through the aluminum shaft and stainless angle brackets. works great. just waiting for the tire mount to break though. it looks like a real weak point.