Malibu X-Wing installation

[keljad]

I recently took delivery of the new Malibu X-wing. This is a new accessory developed for the entire range of Malibu kayaks, and I think could be jerry rigged to fit a whole range of other brands.

The X-Wing is a adjustable sliding console type set up designed for fitting your sounders, GPS, radios, rod holders and what ever elese your imagination can come up with all at finger tip accesability.
The X-Wing is not for everyone, to some it looks "cool", to others it looks like like they could do without it. At this stage I have not fished with it and am yet to pass judgement.

The fitting and installation of the X-Wing posed a few problems for me at first which I managed to overcome, so in light of the new mini X owners here who possibly will take accuisition of the X-Wing, I thought I would save you some troubles by sharing with you what I learned today.

As the X-Wing is a seperate unit and is detachable from the kayak, it poses the problem of how to seperate it from the permanantley fixed thru hull transducer set up that most of us have. Some types of sounder set ups are easy in the fact that you simply unplugg the transducer cable from the head unit which is mounted to the X-Wing, and remove the wing. As my sounder has a quick disconnect style set up where the transducer lead is screwed permanantly to the head unit mount this posed a problem for me. What it meant was that my transducer was fixed permanantley at both ends, at the inside of the hull, and to the X-Wing itself. This meant that I could not remove the X-Wing for transportation or for the comfort of my kids when they rod up front.

The way I overcome this issue was to buy a transducer extension lead. The Sounder head is mounted to the X-Wing, with a REMCO 7amp battery inside the wing p[lus a 3amp inline fuse as per manafactures reccomendation. I drilled a 1inch hole through the front of the X-wing, and also another through the bottom underneath the little accessory tray, I also wacked another through the centre part of the kayak between my legs.

I got three 1inch rubber grommets (solid style) to fill the 3 holes. I used the solid grommets rather than the style with the hole pre drilled as that style has too big a hole and would allow water in. The way I countered the solid style so that I could punch wires through them was to use a leather hole punch and put a perfect wire size hole through the middle. I sliced a cut in them half way through so that I could slide the cables in, and then sika flexed them in place. As the sounder head itself required the indsertion of two leads (transducer and power) I hole punched two holes touching together forming a figure eight.

Installation from hee is simple. Transducer is siliconed to the rear bottom of the kayak, cable is run through to the front cockpit and out of the whole through the grommet. From the X-wing comes the extension cable out of the headunit, through the X-wing, and out of the bottom hole (all through the two other grommets of course) and is left hanging about six inches from the bottom. Connect the twqo cables and your in buisness. When you are finished, simply disconnect and remove the x-wing.

Here are some pictures, sorry I havnt figured out how to put paragraph then picture then paragraph then picture for step by step instructions, hopefull this is clear enough for everyone to understand.