roof rack mounting

[sasaholic]

alright guys the time has come to buy a roof rack for my 95.5 tacoma that has a roof high shell. im gunna get a rack that is 4.5x6.5 feet long so my girlfriend and i can sleep up there in the summer. my question is how to u guys mount your roofracks to your shells. pics would be greatly appreciated. thanks guys i love this site.

 

[dustboy]

I have the Yakima feet that sit directly on top of the camper shell..

I marked for the holes, and drilled through the fiberglass. If your shell is carpeted make sure the carpet is cut away so the drill bit doesn't snag when it pops through. Then I put a liberal amount of silicon caulk on the bottom of the feet, and bolted them down with some stainless bolts, and on the bottom used fender washers and nylon nuts (so they can't be unscrewed from the outside).

I don't know if I'd sleep up there, me and my wife's combined weight is 320 lbs (not gonna break that down for ya) and I think the yak rack is rated for 150 or so??

 

[sasaholic]

im not really planning on using the bars to mount it i was more thinking about making custom brackets the bolt to the camper and the basket eliminating the need for the bars, but is the fiberglass strong enough to hold the weight. its a leer and is thick and heavy as hell, but anyone have a set up like im talking about?

 

[Cabrito]

A little dorky but,

On my old truck I used Unistrut with 90 degree brackets to attach the cross bar. It held up pretty well and lasted a long time. I would load the roof with tons of stuff.

No real good pics but the best I can do right now. I will try to find another one.

-m

 

[sasaholic]

ok thanks guys keep the pics and ideas coming

 

[sasaholic]

i know this site has more baskets mounted to canopys come on guys

 

[ntsqd]

There was a thread on this topic a while back with some good suggestions and some good pics in it.

 

[sasaholic]

i searched but came up empty. could u direct me in the direction of that thread?

 

[eugene]

I think if you move the thread into a more general section you'd get more responses, I only noticed it because it was on the new posts search. I was concerned about the strength of the fiberglass myself but found out my cap has plywood in the roof which strengthens it. I used some large stainless bolts and put rubber O rings from the plumbing section of the hardware store around them for a seal. Where my mounting holes went through the plywood I used T nuts to keep the bolts from sticking down (changed to those after scratching my back on one). Where the bolts went through just fiberglass I put large fender washers to help spread the load to prevent cracking. I'm albe to stand on my cap jyst fine (was helpful for hanging Christmas lights) or pull myself up from the rack rails so its pretty strong.

 

[sasaholic]

thanks very much, but where should i move it to and how do i go about doing it.

 

[Cabrito]

I remember that on my camper shell I used plywood backing inside the shell to make it more ridged when I bolted the unistrut to it.

 

[mountainpete]

These are really old pics, but I still have the same setup and have a very heavy RTT up there!

Mounting of the tracks from the underside:

With a canoe:

With RTT:

 

[sasaholic]

thats just what i was looking for thank you very much. i wasnt really worried about the mounts cause im going to build those and will make them plenty strong. i was just worried about the structure of the fiberglass. thanks again to everyone