snowblind
Adventurer
RhinoRack 76"x54" Pioneer Aluminum Platform
I've been thinking about adding some sort of roof platform for a few years now. Not a cargo platform though. A photography platform.
I have two Yakima Skybox cargo boxes I have used extensively for camping and travel. The cargo boxes served me well but I always disliked the vehicle handling with loaded boxes. The Suburban has always been a bit of a lumbering beast and adding weight to the roof magnifies that. I also hate having the boxes on the roof when I'm not using them.
These days my camping trips involve a lot less people and there is no need for cargo boxes. What I do have need for is a mount for my sun awning and elevation above my surroundings for taking photographs. A lightweight but sturdy roof platform with a removable ladder is what I wanted and RhinoRack and Thule had the products.
The platform is strong and relatively lightweight. On this model there are five aluminum planks and five aluminum crossbars, mounted in a frame of four aluminum rails and four plastic corners.
There are no "off-the-shelf" RhinoRack mounting solution for the GMT800 Suburbans. There actually aren't many racks available at all but fortunately I had a bunch of Thule "square bar" roof rack gear I had collected over the years.
Here is the rough mounting. The Thule crossbar positioning is a ********** because the factory roof rails are curved front to back and made it challenging to get the platform level.
The final mounting of the platform to the Thule bars will require some metal fab. The image below shows RhinoRack mounts for Rhino HD bars. The key piece of fabrication will be creating a plate that replaces one end with holes for a u-bolt that wraps the thule bar.
That's all for now. I will provide updates when we fab up the mounts.
I've been thinking about adding some sort of roof platform for a few years now. Not a cargo platform though. A photography platform.
I have two Yakima Skybox cargo boxes I have used extensively for camping and travel. The cargo boxes served me well but I always disliked the vehicle handling with loaded boxes. The Suburban has always been a bit of a lumbering beast and adding weight to the roof magnifies that. I also hate having the boxes on the roof when I'm not using them.
These days my camping trips involve a lot less people and there is no need for cargo boxes. What I do have need for is a mount for my sun awning and elevation above my surroundings for taking photographs. A lightweight but sturdy roof platform with a removable ladder is what I wanted and RhinoRack and Thule had the products.
The platform is strong and relatively lightweight. On this model there are five aluminum planks and five aluminum crossbars, mounted in a frame of four aluminum rails and four plastic corners.
There are no "off-the-shelf" RhinoRack mounting solution for the GMT800 Suburbans. There actually aren't many racks available at all but fortunately I had a bunch of Thule "square bar" roof rack gear I had collected over the years.
Here is the rough mounting. The Thule crossbar positioning is a ********** because the factory roof rails are curved front to back and made it challenging to get the platform level.
The final mounting of the platform to the Thule bars will require some metal fab. The image below shows RhinoRack mounts for Rhino HD bars. The key piece of fabrication will be creating a plate that replaces one end with holes for a u-bolt that wraps the thule bar.
That's all for now. I will provide updates when we fab up the mounts.
