Extended Aft Bimini option

jcnc

New member
Have a 28 surf with the extended Bimini option and the attaching screws keep striping the guide tubes. Wondering if anyone else has had this issue as this seems to be a terrible design ( 2 thread depth in aluminum and plastic guide inserts) and how you resolved it so the Bimini stays attached?
 
No you cannot drill through the tube because there is another tube which slides through it so the extended Bimini cover does not have to be extended all the time.
 
Is there any way that you can post pictures of it, so we might be able to what is going on. I help a guy out at a marine canvas shop, maybe he has some ideas as to how to make it work.
 
The pictures 3765 and 3766 are with the silver tubes attached, they attach with 2 screws coming down from the top tube (which is the normal Bimini frame structure) the pictures 3847 and 3848 are of the guide tube which attaches to the normal Bimini frame structure and you can see the metal is so thin, and aluminum, only about 2 treads of the screw get into the guide tube and strip out immediately. It is a terrible design as there is a good amount of force needed to extend and retract the Bimini, each time i used it i got one extension and retraction before it stripped now twice.
 

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Ok, lets see if I am reading this right. The white tube is fasten to the s.s.aft tube, and the s.s. bow tube slides in and out of the white tube?
If that is correct, then this will be a permanent fix. I have this setup for my bimini, because to store it I need it longer, and to use it I need it shorter.
If you have the tools and are handy, you can buy the things you will need to do it yourself. If not a good marine canvas shop can do it for you. They should not charge you that much, because what they will use is left over things from other jobs. You will need a length of s.s. tubbing larger or smaller than the tubig you have, depending on your size. You will be replacing one of your tubes and transferring the end hardware to the new tube. In the smaller of the 2 tubes will be kind of a kob on the end of kind of a tension bar. There will be a hole drilled in the tube for the knob to stick out. And then at the desired length a hole drilled in the larger tube. When you have the tubes extended the little knob will fall in the hole of the larger pipe and lock it in place. To release it, you just push in the little knob. Easy fix, will last forever. 1 length of tubing and 1 little knob.
 
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