Adding a roof rack to your JK hardtop, inexpensively

nwoods

Expedition Leader
I like it:
http://www.off-road.com/jeep/tech/jeep-jk-rubicon-recycled-roof-rack-53450.html

Take the rack off one of these:
1-Jeep-Roof-Rack-5-16-12.jpg



Add to one of these:
20-Jeep-Roof-Rack-5-16-12.jpg


All together now:
Lead-Jeep-Roof-Rack-5-16-12.jpg
 

Chris85xlt

Adventurer
awesome!
Originally i was going to buy yakima rails with towers and mount it to my hard top but this looks much cleaner
 

brianjwilson

Some sort of lost...
That looks like a good solution to me! Cheap, simple, lower profile and I bet it doesn't whistle like a yakima rack probably would.
 

Septu

Explorer
Damn that's a great idea!! Would be great for my kayak. Only issue I could see is when I upgrade it to a 'real' roof rack...
 

dstock

Explorer
That looks like a good solution to me! Cheap, simple, lower profile and I bet it doesn't whistle like a yakima rack probably would.

The Cherokee roof rack isn't that strong, there's a single rivet holding the crossbars to the side mounts that tends to break relatively easily. I went the yakima route and it does not whistle, plus, you just pop the bars off when you are not using them...takes all of a minute. Cheap is not always better.
 

brianjwilson

Some sort of lost...
Never said it was better either, but not a bad solution for light weight items. I'm hoping to buy a habitat or some other camper top in a year so it doesn't make sense to put a lot into a rack for now. Though I didn't know the Cherokee rack was that weak. I've had a few explorers and the factory racks weren't that bad.
 

Septu

Explorer
Once you have the mounting rails attached, you don't have to use the XJ cross members. A Surco rack I had on my XJ attached to the rails and when I rocked it, it easily rocked the whole jeep.
 

huskyfargo

Adventurer
When I had my JK, I went to the junk yard and got some tracks from a minivan. I bolted them onto the roof and used Yakima crossbars. I was sure to note the year/make/model of the van so I could order the appropriate yakima towers. It worked very well, but I wanted to be able to use the rack with the top off, so I ended up going with a Gobi after a couple years. Here's a pic.
P1000357.jpg
 

Septu

Explorer
Sorry for the crappy pictures, but these are really all I have handy. I have others but can't upload them off my work computer :(
Sold the XJ 2.5 years ago... but loved that thing. The only real weight I ever had up there was when I made a 1800km road trip from Whitehorse to Edmonton (ended up selling it in Edmonton for my 07 JKU). I had my spare tire up there as well as 40l of gas.

15943_199214517594_526467594_3592398_5286358_n.jpg
15943_199051827594_526467594_3591416_7874780_n.jpg
15943_199051822594_2055336_n.jpg
 

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