New BajaRack being made for my FJ

[Corey]

I took the plunge, I ordered earlier this week a BajaRack for my Maggiolina AirLand tent.
It is similar to puulboy's in this thread.
http://www.fjcruiserforums.com/forums/camping-equipment/102708-roof-tents.html
Ordered it through Mike at Autohome.

But it does not have the raised sides on each side up at the front section like at the URL above.
It does have a spoiler shield up front to block some of the wind which will help with handling.

This is the rack that was designed specifically for the Maggiolina and Columbus tents after we had a discussion a year back about getting a low profile rack made over on the blue forum.

You can see how high the base of my tent is here with the stock FJs rack.

It will be sitting just barely off the roof with the new rack.
It will be shipped directly to my Toyota dealership for installation.
They will remove my tent, the stock rack, put on the new BajaRack, then install the tent.
They viewed Sergio's pictures at the beginning of the week, and they said it will be very easy to do this.
I would attempt to do it if I had a home and big garage, but I do not.
Plus it is a two person job to tackle this, the tent alone weighs around 128 lb not including the bedding inside.

I do not have any pics of the Maggiolina and the rack on Sergio's rig online, but I have two here I can attach.

Right now we have been having some strong winds, and it is just to hairy driving my rig at freeway speeds with my lift and the tent up so high.
So I decided the time is right to do this, especially before camping season starts up here before to long.
This should correct the issue for me feeling like the skipper of the SS Minnow.

Coming home from work Friday we had sustained winds of 35 to 45 MPH and I was getting blown all over the place.
The wind channels through the wide opening between the bottom of the tent and the top of the FJs roof thus pushing me around quite a bit.

Nice and low 'eh?
I am getting excited

After it is installed I will update my build thread here in this section.

The Campinglab awning will go back on too with some brackets that BajaRacks makes that bolt to the rack, the tent sits on top, then the bolts stick out from the side to fit into the channels on the back of the Campinglab/ARB style of awnings.

Hopefully I will have this on by the end of the month.

 

[Street Wolf]

Very slick. :sombrero:

 

[lgrt]

sounds like it will be a nice replacement Corey.

 

[Corey]

Thanks guy's.

Here are some pics from BajaRack of the mounting brackets.
Brackets go on first, then the tent goes on top.

Bolts on the brackets line up with the two channels on the Campinglab/ARB style of awnings, then nuts tighten against the channel surface, much like my present mounts for the Yakima bars.

 

[Youngunner]

Looks great!

Those guys at Bajarack were awesome. They sent me some more clamps to adapt their FJ Cruiser RTT rack to my custom over-the-shell frame I fabbed up.

 

[Corey]

Looks great.
I would duplicate your setup if I had a Tacoma.

 

[STREGA]

Corey this is what you been needing, I'am sure this will greatly enhance the handling of your FJ. I hardly notice my RTT on my FJ mounted on a EXP rack.

:safari-rig: On my way to the Overland Expo!

 

[timh]

You will really like that Bajarack, their quality is excellent!

 

[Youngunner]

Hey, are those awning brackets specially made for you or a full production run? I've never seen em' before.

 

[Corey]

Corey this is what you been needing, I'am sure this will greatly enhance the handling of your FJ. I hardly notice my RTT on my FJ mounted on a EXP rack.

:safari-rig: On my way to the Overland Expo!

Have fun at the Expo, wish I was able to attend.
I am sure I will get a lot of my handling back, just way to high right now.

You will really like that Bajarack, their quality is excellent!

The ladder I have by them is very nice, powdercoat is holding up very well too.

Hey, are those awning brackets specially made for you or a full production run? I've never seen em' before.

Shoot Sergio an email on them.
Looks like it might work with their other racks, not sure.

 

[Youngunner]

Found them on the Bajarack site! I just have to decide on the awning...

 

[Corey]

I was informed today that my rack was made, and it was test fitted on Sergio's FJ, the FJ in the pics above.

The rack still has to be powdercoated, and then it will ship next Monday.
The wait is now getting shorter.

 

[sn0wspyder]

Looks great!

Those guys at Bajarack were awesome. They sent me some more clamps to adapt their FJ Cruiser RTT rack to my custom over-the-shell frame I fabbed up.

you got some more photos of that set up? that kinda what ive had in my head. thanks

 

[NorCalBorn]

S-u-a-wheat! Heck if I could find an excuse to head to the Gorge I'd find a way to convince you to meet there and give me your old one so I can see if it'll mod nicely for my ride. Wanna ship it to me via the NorthWest Expo Express?
~sn0spyder, I like that! FWIW I'm still playing around with the idea of a removable back-half exo for mounting the Magg to my 2nd-Gen 4Runner via the sliders and rear bumper. I should get busy and sketch it up for opinions?

I'd ask for pics but I know you too well and can't wait to see the writeup. :coffeedrink:

 

[Corey]

This same info I am posting I will copy over to my buildup thread at a later date.
___________

OK, I called the dealer around 11:20 am today and they said they needed to see me, there was a "slight" complication, and they needed to talk to me before proceeding any further.

I got there and they showed me the front two latches on the tent were hitting a horizontal tube near the front of the rack which you will see in a picture below.
I called up BajaRack and company and spoke with Sergio and John, and they said we could move the tent backwards some on the rack.

The tech had gone to lunch by then so the service manager and I went to the shop and tried it, and they still hit.
Another tech who was working on a Toyota next to mine said they already tried that.
Sergio suggested I send him a picture which I did, and he saw the problem right away.
My latches were much longer than Frenchie's latches that were on the test tent they used when they mocked up the first rack.
Frenchie has the Maggiolina Extreme small version.
Same length as my Airland, but narrower.
His latches are also shorter which would not have been a problem for me if the latches were all the same.

Scott my tech who did a fantastic job installing everything suggested grinding down my latches to shorten them to clear the horizontal bar up front.
BajaRack will now be incorporating in the next racks like mine to not have the front horizontal bar.
The rack is very beefy, and one bar out will not hurt a thing.
Rack is overkill, it is well built.
The rig sure got lots of looks today from the dealership, and even Toyota corporate was there today visiting.

The latches clear completely now.
I could install new shorter ones, but that would involved popping these out and re-pop riveting in a new latch.
I think at this time I am not going to mess with it.

As you can see by the pictures, the rack sits much lower to the roof now, and the spoiler up front will block the wind from entering underneath.

If you would like to order one of these racks, give Mike a call at www.autohomeus.com
There is already a page in place being worked on for the FJ rack like mine.

Links:
BajaRack
Autohome US page for the racks (coming soon)

Two cell phone pics from the Droid showing the latch before it was ground down, and shortly after Scott drove up to the waiting area with my rig.

Regular pics