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Crestliner Eagle Wobbly Hardtop


dt5150

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i have a 2000 crestliner eagle 2450 hardtop, a wobbly hardtop. it'll shimmy side to side pretty good when hitting the waves. it has 4 points where it bolts down, 2 on the dash and 2 on the back of the cockpit area. i'm wondering if someone else out there may have a solution for securing the top a little better so it doesn't wobble as much.

 

here's a couple pics of the attachment points. for the dash points, there are alum. backing plates underneath that are roughly the same size as the "foot" on the top side. i have the idea of using a single piece of alum. to attach to both sides, essentially tying the two together. when you hit a wake/wave, you can see the dashboard (black colored area in pic, which is alum sheeting) flex quite a bit. my thinking is by using one long piece as a backing plate to both feet, it would/should help quite a bit with the dashboard flexing.

 

for the rear attachment points, you can see from the pic where they are. access to the back side to get to the nuts isn't terrible, have to remove the panel. i don't know what kind of backing plate (if any) was used on these, but they flex a fair amount too. if there are just washers or something back there, i could add some alum flat stock as a backing plate which may improve things. but if there are backing plates already in place, i don't really have any ideas on how i could improve on that.

 

any ideas or suggestions guys? thanks...

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I'd imagine the problem is where it connects to the roof. If they aren't rigid then you would get the sloppiness. The mounts to the boat are just receiving the secondary stresses due to the sloppiness at the roof. Check those connection's and take a closer picture of those so we get a better idea of how it mounts there.

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i see what you're saying. i don't have any pics of the roof attachments, and she's still shrink wrapped for her long winter's nap.

 

when it shakes side to side, i can see the aluminum dashboard (the black area) flex. i'm guessing that the setup itself is very top heavy, causing excessive movement in the mounts.

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Yeah and once those roof mounts get loose the forces applied with keep making it worse. Stress cracking and screws pulling through. Like a roll cage for a car, I believe there should be cross members going horizontal from front left to front right and back left to back right. This provides the rigidity then slap the fiberglass roof on top. Unfortunately alot of tops don't do this and rely heavily on the fiberglass to provide the rigidity. Adding horizontals to the structure may be necessary if the fiberglass is weakened.

 

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What about having tubes made to mimick the ones that are vertical and applying on the top of the roof thru bolting the roof mounts to the new tubes. Could mount lights or light bar on the front tube. The rear looks like you have a rod Arch already for rocket launcher but does that Arch connect from upright to upright? Or does it utilize the roof. The roof without a substructure being aluminum could flex in the middle allowing movement and I'd imagine that hanging dash adds a lot of weight to the aluminum roof. The flexing of that would mean the roof is "buckling" in the middle when the movement happens.

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i may end up going that route, or something similar. i'm going to try beefing up the backing plates up front first, then see how the rear mounts look, and go from there. i really don't want to add more tubing to it if i don't have to. $$$.

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I had same problem with my 21 ft Striper . During rough water , my hard top would wobble side to side . I fixed that problem, by buying two ratchet straps . Went from top of pole by the roof to a cleat on side of boat . Did that on both sides. No more wobble during rough seas.


Sent from my iPhone using Lake Ontario United

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My Crestliner Sabre hardtop flexed a little bit in rough seas, so the previous owner added a 2x4 to the back of the hardtop. I know our hardtops are mounted completely different, but adding the 2x4 provided the side to side rigidity that the hardtop needed.

 

There are some good suggestions thrown out there already, so just wanted to add a slightly different possible "fix".

 

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I would sacrifice a bit of vis off my port, and decrease the likelihood of losing a mount... I'm sure there's other options, but usually you can get the support bent to still give you visibility with the much need torque support.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Lake Ontario United mobile app

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