This box sitting on my dock was the last thing standing between me and getting my boat back in the water. I had that same feeling you get unboxing furniture from IKEA — the one where you know you’re going to skip the instructions. I didn’t skip them this time, and I’m glad I didn’t, because installing a wake tower is one of those jobs that looks simple until you’re staring at a pile of aluminum legs, brackets, and hardware wondering where to start. I put a Big Air CUDA tower on my boat myself, and I’m walking through exactly how it went — including the parts that didn’t go as planned.
Why It Matters
A wake tower isn’t just a place to mount your speakers and bimini — it’s a structural addition that gets bolted straight into your hull. Do it wrong and you’re looking at cracked gel coat, stripped hardware, or a tower that isn’t square and puts uneven stress on your deck every time you’re pulling a wakeboarder or skier. If you’re going to do this yourself instead of paying a shop, you need to understand the hardware, the backing requirements, and how to get your measurements square on a boat that — let’s be honest — was never built perfectly symmetrical to begin with.
Products
- Big Air CUDA Tower – the wake tower kit itself, includes legs, H-member, corner connectors, and mounting hardware
- Blue Loctite – used on bolts threading into aluminum to keep them from backing out
- White lithium grease / marine grease – applied to bolt and nut threads to prevent galling between stainless components
- Zinc-plated threaded rod (14mm x 100mm) – used to extend the rear mounting rods when the factory ones weren’t long enough
- PVC composite/starboard backing board – cut down and used as a backing plate where the hull glass was thinner than expected
- Metal polish – used to clean up grease and fingerprints off the aluminum tower before final install
Step-by-Step Guide
1. Unbox and Inventory Everything
Open every box and lay out the pieces before you touch a wrench. This kit came with a genuinely large amount of hardware, and the instructions flagged an important detail right away: use blue Loctite when threading bolts into aluminum, and grease the threads when running a nut onto a bolt. That’s not optional advice — stainless on stainless will gall and lock up on you, and at that point you’re cutting the bolt off instead of removing it.
2. Assemble the Tower Frame
Sort the legs by type — the corner connectors are the tops, and the long straight legs go front or back. Grease every threaded connection before final tightening, and only snug things down finger-tight at this stage so you can still make adjustments. Assembling both sides plus the center H-member took about 55 minutes.
3. Mark Center Points on the Legs
Before drilling, mark 12-inch reference points on each of the top legs. This gives you a consistent measurement point so the center H-member ends up even on all four corners instead of trying to measure off a curved surface.
4. Find Your Boat’s Centerline
This is the part manufacturers make look easy and it isn’t, because no boat is perfectly symmetrical stem to stern. I ran a string from the bow eye up each side of the boat, marked the same length on both sides, and used that as my centerline reference instead of squaring off a 2×4 and T-square like the tower manufacturer’s video shows. It’s not a perfect method, but it got me close enough to square relative to the keel.
5. Drill and Mount the Rear Brackets
Once you’ve got your marks, drill your rear mounting holes. Countersink the holes before you drill through — this protects your gel coat from pressure cracking and chipping down the road, especially on an older hull. Start with a small pilot bit and step up in size; for the largest bit I used, I ran it in reverse to avoid chipping the gel coat, while smaller bits ran forward.
6. Check Your Backing Thickness — Don’t Assume
I measured the glass thickness at my mounting point and it came in under 3/8 inch — closer to 5/16. That’s thin enough that I needed a backing plate to spread the load. I cut a piece of PVC composite board to roughly 9 inches on either side of the hole to give the mount proper support. I’d have preferred HDPE starboard, but the composite trim board did the job.
7. Deal With Hardware That Doesn’t Fit
My factory mounting rods weren’t long enough once the backing plate and washers were in place. I picked up 14mm x 100mm zinc threaded rod locally as a stopgap so I could keep moving instead of stalling the whole project over a parts run, then swapped in the correct stainless hardware once it arrived.
8. Set Your Preload Measurement
The instructions called for 6 to 8 inches of preload between the tower’s back feet and the mounting brackets. I targeted 5 inches, which put my rear feet at 83.5 inches apart against a total spread of roughly 88.5 inches at the brackets. Preload matters here — it’s what pressurizes the top of the tower and makes the whole structure rigid instead of floppy.
9. Square the Tower and Drill the Final Holes
Square the H-member by measuring an equal distance around all four sides — mine came out to 7 inches on every side, confirming square even though the angled legs make it look otherwise. With the tower squared and at your target preload, drill your inner mounting holes.
10. Mount, Level, and Final-Torque
Carry the tower to the boat, set it on the rear mounts, and level the boat’s floor front-to-back and side-to-side before leveling the tower off that reference. Mark your final leg positions, drill the side mounts, then disassemble everything one more time to apply Loctite and fully torque every bolt down. Reassemble, tighten in sequence, and you’re done.
Pro Tips
- Grease every stainless-on-stainless connection before you tighten it down. Skipping this is how bolts gall and seize — and once that happens, you’re cutting hardware off instead of removing it.
- Always counter sink your mounting holes before running the bolt through. On an older hull especially, an un-countersunk hole will eventually pressurize and crack or chip your gel coat.
- Double-check part orientation before you bolt it down permanently. I had a couple of brackets on backwards and mounted for the wrong side rack — easy mistake to make even after reading the directions and watching the install video.
Final Verdict
This is a doable DIY project, but don’t underestimate it. The manufacturer quotes 3 to 6 hours with two people; doing it solo with unexpected issues — thin hull glass needing a backing plate, mounting rods that were too short, pushed it well past that. If your hardware fits as-is and your hull glass is thick enough at the mounting points, you could realistically knock this out in an afternoon. If you hit the same surprises I did, budget extra time and a trip to the hardware store. I’d do it myself again, but I wouldn’t plan on finishing it in one sitting.
FAQ
Do I need a backing plate to install a wake tower? Not always, but check your hull thickness at each mounting point first. If it’s under 3/8 inch, a backing plate — starboard, composite, or HDPE — is worth adding to spread the load and prevent the mount from working loose over time.
Why do you countersink wake tower mounting holes? Countersinking relieves pressure around the hole so the gel coat doesn’t crack or chip over time as the bolt is torqued and the boat flexes underway.
How much preload should a wake tower have? Most manufacturers call for around 6 to 8 inches of preload between the tower’s rear feet and mounting brackets, though your actual number will depend on the specific tower and boat width. Preload is what pressurizes and stiffens the structure.
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