Imnosaint
Gone Microcamping
Good idea, but the door won't clear the receiver. Something fabricated to a pintle plate is a great idea.
ImNoSaint's 2.5 Thread
- Thread starter Imnosaint
- Start date
Good idea, but the door won't clear the receiver. Something fabricated to a pintle plate is a great idea.
Imnosaint
Gone Microcamping
Rocker Blackout
I used Duplicolor's Spray Truck Bed Coating to black out the rockers and bumpers. I made the mistake of using their rolled on product to begin with, resulting in bad surface continuity.
The coating was sealed at the seam to the factory finish with 1/4" pin striping in signal orange as a nod to the Montero/Pajero's history with the Camel Trophy.
I used Duplicolor's Spray Truck Bed Coating to black out the rockers and bumpers. I made the mistake of using their rolled on product to begin with, resulting in bad surface continuity.
The coating was sealed at the seam to the factory finish with 1/4" pin striping in signal orange as a nod to the Montero/Pajero's history with the Camel Trophy.
Imnosaint
Gone Microcamping
Apex Roof Rack
The Franklin Rack didn't work out for our needs; too small, not rigid enough. It's found a new home on my son's Gen 3. For $54 more than the Franklin, I replaced it with this Apex Rack, a larger, more rigid platform with parallel vertical posts where a rear awning can be mounted. Yep, it's cheap, but with a few mods and hardware upgrades it mounts solid, holds up to 250 pounds and will serve our purposes. While the Garvin rack worked well on the H3, I just can't bring myself to the roof-top fashion shows of +$1k
The rack builds with a lower base with a welded basket and an upper rail attached with vertical stanchions. The way it comes together, the rack can be separated into two halves, front and rear,with some questionable hardware that clicks the tubes together - nothing that can't be remedied with stainless hardware. It fits well on the stock roof rails with enough rear overhang to mount an awning.
The rack mounts with four U-bolts with thumb screws. There's plenty of room for recovery gear, Rotopax fuel and water containers, and our Kodiak tent.
The Franklin Rack didn't work out for our needs; too small, not rigid enough. It's found a new home on my son's Gen 3. For $54 more than the Franklin, I replaced it with this Apex Rack, a larger, more rigid platform with parallel vertical posts where a rear awning can be mounted. Yep, it's cheap, but with a few mods and hardware upgrades it mounts solid, holds up to 250 pounds and will serve our purposes. While the Garvin rack worked well on the H3, I just can't bring myself to the roof-top fashion shows of +$1k
The rack builds with a lower base with a welded basket and an upper rail attached with vertical stanchions. The way it comes together, the rack can be separated into two halves, front and rear,with some questionable hardware that clicks the tubes together - nothing that can't be remedied with stainless hardware. It fits well on the stock roof rails with enough rear overhang to mount an awning.
The rack mounts with four U-bolts with thumb screws. There's plenty of room for recovery gear, Rotopax fuel and water containers, and our Kodiak tent.
Last edited:
Imnosaint
Gone Microcamping
ARB 1250 Awning
Shade is a commodity like water where we amble. Trees are sparse in the land that we travel and we've depended on an awning for the decade we've been doing this.
This is our third awning, our second ARB and I was surprised to find some improvements in the product when I slipped it out of its shipping tube.
Gone is the envelope design of the case. This one is tailored, boxed at the ends to better fit the rolled awning with an inverted pouch on both ends to keep the zipper tabs.
Nothing else has changed and doesn't need to. The friction cams on the legs lock tight, the channel material and junction hardware are machined to tuck away and stay put.
The awning is mounted to the Apex Roof Rack using four 3/4 inch rubber-lined zinc plated clamps on the vertical stanchions and two 1" clamps on the top rail, under $7 for a solid awning mount.
Shade is a commodity like water where we amble. Trees are sparse in the land that we travel and we've depended on an awning for the decade we've been doing this.
This is our third awning, our second ARB and I was surprised to find some improvements in the product when I slipped it out of its shipping tube.
Gone is the envelope design of the case. This one is tailored, boxed at the ends to better fit the rolled awning with an inverted pouch on both ends to keep the zipper tabs.
Nothing else has changed and doesn't need to. The friction cams on the legs lock tight, the channel material and junction hardware are machined to tuck away and stay put.
The awning is mounted to the Apex Roof Rack using four 3/4 inch rubber-lined zinc plated clamps on the vertical stanchions and two 1" clamps on the top rail, under $7 for a solid awning mount.
Imnosaint
Gone Microcamping
Thanks. Half the fun is figuring al this out.
PirateMcGee
Expedition Leader
Haha that rack is making the Mitsu rounds!
Imnosaint
Gone Microcamping
It's possible, but you'd have to reinforce the rack's weak spot which is the junction between the two platform halves.
I tied the basket floor together with UV resistant zip ties as well. A wire crimp would be even better.
Last edited:
jhill15
Explorer
Ahhh Gotcha! Thanks for the quick response and pics! I didn't see that the floor and tubing was in multiple pieces. It could definitely be done but for everything involved it might just be better to go with the rhino rack.
Thanks man!
Sent from my LG-H900 using Tapatalk
Thanks man!
Sent from my LG-H900 using Tapatalk
Last edited:
PirateMcGee
Expedition Leader
I'm using the smaller one and it's one solid piece. I have it u bolted directly to the raised side rails as a platform rack.
SONICMASD
Adventurer
Very cool roof rack, thanks for the tips. My only concern, is I thought I read that the stock roof rack is only rated by Mitsu for 75lbs so you might want to be careful about overloading it past that point. I think that's why most guys are taking the stock rails off, and adding perpendicular rails from the gutter mount.
The Pro Line brand is a popular choice among guys in the FB group, I plan on getting them soon as well and can provide more details then.
http://www.prolineracks.com/proline-gmr165-rain-gutter-racks.html
The Pro Line brand is a popular choice among guys in the FB group, I plan on getting them soon as well and can provide more details then.
http://www.prolineracks.com/proline-gmr165-rain-gutter-racks.html
PirateMcGee
Expedition Leader
On my Sport I assume they are rated much higher as both yakima and thule offer 165lb capacity systems that utilize the stock rails. I do think the OEM system with cross bars is rated for less but I'm not positive.
Imnosaint
Gone Microcamping
Right, a gutter mount certainly ups the integrity of the mount. There's a label on my stock rack indicating a load limit of 100 (OP was 150, but I've since been working on the rack and found the label) pounds. Just this weekend I attached a pair of J-hook kayak racks to the stock cross bars, loaded the kayak, and couldn't trust it to drive out the drive way. Since I was in a pinch I picked up some Reese cross bars at WallyWorld making all the difference in the world.
Shear limits on the stock hardware - where the rack mounts to the roof - are one thing to consider, but if they're not reasonably triangulated with something solid connecting the rails, the rack is easy to compromise. The 2.5's stock cross bars are crap for this. They can be reinforced in how a rack is attached, connected to apex areas as close to rails and their stanchions as possible, replaced with a solid aftermarket crossbar, or as you rightly suggest, circumvented with a gutter mount system. The gutter mounts need to be substantial enough in their base, though. I've seen some squirrelly DYI gutter mounts.
Last edited: