First of all I have just trained my first session with the tandem tower its hands down the best piece of gym equipment I have ever bought its versatile well built and solid, the cable swivel means you can do everything from chest flies to lat pull down to tricep extension the cables are smooth and feels like a high end commercial gym.
The installation process I found challenging, took me around 5 hours, admittedly on my own but it was quite frustrating the box arrives in a pair of wooden crates, the packaging is overall good and well labelled, the weight stack itself is in a wooden and metal box that was hard to get open once you have everything open its very well organised, every phase (all 11 of them) is separately labeled and that includes the screws bolts etc that you need, they include tools including two spanners but highly recommend a ratchet set and a second spanner.
My issue is after all the meticulous labelling the instructions themselves are very vague with very little written instruction and just a diagram where you need to work out where things need to go, especially the page where it tells you where the cable needs to go, probably the most important in a cable machine is incredibly hard to work out from the diagram.
A few tips from my assembly experience.
Threading the cable, you first dismantle the cable end pay close attention to how its set up when you reassemble it you will have pressure from the floating pulleys on the cables and if you get it wrong it will go all the way back through the pulleys and you will need to thread it all again, the cables thread through the arms its actually a really good design just needs better explanation.
My top of weight stack pin did not fit in the top of the weight stack selector while I was able to substitute with a bolt from Bunnings and its not a show stopper but without the bolt in place it does put your cable off, its also hard to find its wrapped with the top of the weight stack this may have been an error with my unit it was easy to fix.
The floating pulleys are labled as phase 8 they are actually phase 7
While I had no issue assembling most of it myself right at the end of the assembly you have to attach a piece of flat metal to the top of the unit thread two screws through lining up a hole and then a hidden screw hole to bold the top of the unit together, suggest you get a friend to help I managed it eventually but you need to pull the upright forward and then lift it up slightly while making sure that the other end doesn't fall off, its the stuff of nightmares on your own.
The pull out foot rest for seated rows is incredibly stiff and was very hard to get into the slot, this may be easier with some oil or lubrication.
Despite the challenges I am super happy with the equipment hopefully the good people at gym and fitness do an install video to help others in future.
