How-To: Remove Fly High Fittings That Have Been Glued In

We sell a lot of Fly High wakeboard ballast bags, and many times customers are using them to replace smaller capacity sacs that came in their boat from the factory. Most customers want to reuse those factory bags elsewhere in the boat with a Fly High Supa Tsunami wakeboard ballast pump, but unfortunately the fittings used on those factory bags are typically cemented in place when they are made, which makes it much more difficult to replace them with the Quick Twist Adapter for use with the Tsunami pump.  Although it is possible to remove fittings after they have been cemented in place, the process is not something most of our customers want to deal with.

Occasionally though customers have asked us for instructions, so here is a step by step tutorial on how to remove the fittings.

Step 1: Lay the bag out on a hard, flat surface (a cement garage floor works well) with the fitting of interest sticking straight up into the air.

Step 2: Using a hair dryer (and only a hair dryer, nothing more powerful) on it’s low setting, apply heat to the area where the black flange in the bag meets the grey fitting. Leave the hair dryer in place for AT LEAST five minutes.

Step 3: With the hair dryer still pointed at the bag, stand with your feet on either side of the fitting so the soles of your shoes are on the black flange portion of the bag. The hair dryer should be between your heels pointing at the fitting in the direction you are facing.

Step 4: With the hair dryer still pointed at the bag, push the end of the fitting straight away from you. Try to get the end of the fitting to touch the ground while your feet hold the flange of the bag flush with the ground.

Step 5: You will be “popping” the fitting out of the bag, NOT unthreading it. If it doesn’t pop out the first time that’s fine, just start over at step two. It usually takes a couple of tries to get the process down, but once you do it one time, the rest of the fittings will come out easily.

CAUTION: It is very easy to damage the bags beyond repair while trying to remove fittings either by applying too much force or too much heat. Start slowly, and if the fitting does not come out easily, repeat from step 2 above.

Step 6: Once the fitting has been removed, both the fitting and the port on the bag should be undamaged and ready for reuse.

Once are finished and you've succesfully removed your factory fittings, head over to our ballast bag fittings category to pick up some replacements for compatibility with the Tsunami pump, or any other application you have.