Got my 212X into my 93" garage

[Revo]

Hey guys, new member here. Just became a proud owner of a 2019 212X - having just picked it up Saturday. In fact, I haven't even taken her out on her maiden voyage yet. I am posting this in the hopes of helping prospective owners gain some insight in shoehorning the "100.8 inch tall" boat into a shorter garage.

I did as much research as I could - information seems to be spread around and scarce, making it difficult to figure out exactly what is and isn't possible. Fortunately, my dealer worked with me a bit by disconnecting the retention straps so I could get a measurement of the minimum height with the tower lowered beyond the normal folded height.

Well, as it turns out, without the wakeboard rack/holders attached to the tower, the bimini removed, and retention straps (wires) disconnected so that the tower is lowered such that it is 41" off the deck of the boat, the boat is only about 91.5" tall at its highest point, and slipped into my 93" tall garage opening just fine. This was lucky as I mistakenly though my garage was 95" tall - it would have been a bad day otherwise.

Additionally, the retention straps attach to the tower by keying into a block that's then bolted into the bottom of the tower. With the tower folded, you can easily look and see them (just follow the straps up into the gap). It's a single bolt holding each block and it takes an 8mm hex (allen) key. It's secured with red locktite, so you'll need a good hex bit socket and a ratchet to break it free. Obviously, make sure you support the tower well before doing this.

The part I haven't personally done myself (but have read much about) is the other end of the retention straps recessed into the deck. There's apparently a 1/4-20 threaded rod with nuts and a large washer that you can use a long nut and a threaded rod to extend, thereby allowing the tower to collapse to whatever height you want it to. I plan to do this so I no longer have to support the tower with something.

In my situation, I will still need to attach and detach the wakeboard rack/holders each time - so I may try to find some alternate way of mounting them (perhaps the leading edge of the tower?). Even so, it's only 4 bolts per side and would take only a few minutes to do so. Not a huge a deal, and I could just leave them off if I wasn't going to do any water sports that outing.

Hope this helps anyone curious. I'll add photos soon.

 

[jsg73]

Congratulations on your purchase.
I can only imagine your thoughts if you had really needed those other 2 inches.

 

[Dthorpe]

Yep, I did the same with my 212 LS. The dealer completely removed the retention cables for me. I don't have to take the bimini off to fit it into my 93" garage.

 

[JDRacing]

First off, congratulations on the new boat and the on the modification to get it to fit into your garage. These are really great boats in my opinion, and I expect you have a lot of fun in front of you with it. As you've probably already figured out, there's an incredible amount of valuable information on this forum, coupled with a bunch of really great people who will do whatever they can to answer questions and help out.

It sounds like your next step is to re-incorporate the retention cable into your tower. Been there, done that on my 2018 212X. The problem you're going to run into is that the cable/threaded rod setup needs to be extended a full 6" to get your tower down to the height you need to clear a 93" garage. On some of the smaller boats (like the AR 192), you could simply add a coupler and another rod or bolt to get the 2-3" of extension needed.

But since our 212's need 6", if you add a couple and another 1/4-20 threaded rod, it won't work. That's because, although the coupler will fit into the hole in bottom of the gunwhale where the tower is mounted, it won't fit through the hole in the tower itself. And it needs to in order to extend the full 6". The opening in the tower is barely 3/8" and any coupler necessary to thread into a 1/4-20 rod (at least any that I found) are bigger than that.

So, here's what I did. Hope it helps.

https://jetboaters.net/threads/extending-tower-retention-cables-2018-212x-thanks-haknslash.19732/

Jeff

 

[BJH230]

I’m looking at a 212X as well. Why wouldn’t Yamaha make this change during the building process to make the towers collapse a few more inches. My guess is they have lost some sales because of it not fitting in garages.