Rtt on roof gutters on a jeep
- Thread starter Jeep or Tacoma
- Start date
Way too much weight on those gutters, unless that rack also has some internal support via the roll bar.
Sparse Gray Hackle
Morgan Freeman Imposter
Years (decades?) ago, Canoe Magazine had a photo of a brace of canoes on a gutter mount rack that lifted the gutter off the rig, and flew the canoes off the vehicle at speed. I suspect there were some rust issues involved, but it’s still something I no longer do. There are better options.
All that said… I doubt he will/did have problems.
All that said… I doubt he will/did have problems.
Land Rovers do it, but you need to know the load your Jeep gutters can take, old Defenders are 300lbs when moving. Lots of others are sub 100lbs for the same, jeeps are about 85-90lbs all up including the roof rack, so that guy is pretty massively overloaded. The cross bars will be about 30-40 lbs and the RTT about 160 call it 200. 120 over may not seem like much, but it is not a good idea.
Lemsteraak
Adventurer
It might work but you really need to do some homework to make sure the top is well connected to the jeep and the gutters are structural so that the rack has something to connect to. Hard to tell by pictures. If the top is designed to handle a roll over, might be good to go. Ask the mfg for their crash test data.
We never trusted jeep tops to have enough structure so we worked with an eco-skeleton rack. If memory serves, the rack weighed 50-60 lbs because it was large diameter, thin walled tubing. Did not flex and was tested to over 2000 pounds static.
Here is a picture of a concept from like 30 years ago. What I find interesting is the design of roof tents have come full circle, back to the box. The rack, tent and even the goofy light bar combined came in at less than Jeeps 165 pound roof limit. Technically, the load wasn't supported by the roof and the rack doubled as a roll bar. The roof could be disconnected and taken out the back without disturbing the rack or tent.
We never trusted jeep tops to have enough structure so we worked with an eco-skeleton rack. If memory serves, the rack weighed 50-60 lbs because it was large diameter, thin walled tubing. Did not flex and was tested to over 2000 pounds static.
Here is a picture of a concept from like 30 years ago. What I find interesting is the design of roof tents have come full circle, back to the box. The rack, tent and even the goofy light bar combined came in at less than Jeeps 165 pound roof limit. Technically, the load wasn't supported by the roof and the rack doubled as a roll bar. The roof could be disconnected and taken out the back without disturbing the rack or tent.
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DCH109
Adventurer
So the answer to the question is yes and no.
I moved a FSR RTT about 50 miles on a set of roof racks mounted to my gutters. these were the Exposed Racks brand which has some extra support to spread out the load on the hard top.
It was more of I needed to get it home from the guy I bought it from.
It creaked and did not make me comfortable or overly confident that it was not going to damage my hard top.
Land Rovers and Land Cruiser use a metal drip rail so not an issue.
Jeep Wrangler drip rails are whatever the hard top is made of (Fiberglass, abs?).
So while you could transport it, I would not sleep up there as the stress on the rails is far to much.
Either get a rack that mounts (drill through the hardtop) on the roll bar or an exoskeleton type like the one Lemsteraak shows above.
I moved a FSR RTT about 50 miles on a set of roof racks mounted to my gutters. these were the Exposed Racks brand which has some extra support to spread out the load on the hard top.
It was more of I needed to get it home from the guy I bought it from.
It creaked and did not make me comfortable or overly confident that it was not going to damage my hard top.
Land Rovers and Land Cruiser use a metal drip rail so not an issue.
Jeep Wrangler drip rails are whatever the hard top is made of (Fiberglass, abs?).
So while you could transport it, I would not sleep up there as the stress on the rails is far to much.
Either get a rack that mounts (drill through the hardtop) on the roll bar or an exoskeleton type like the one Lemsteraak shows above.
