Removing the rack is a good thing

[Trunk Monkey]

In case any of you had any doubts about yanking the OEM rack, this is what lurks underneath. All of the holes had some rust around the nutzerts. Looks like my PO (who I've bad-mouthed regularly) at least took some preventative maintenance and had silicon around them. One other question, do the ribs come off? I unscrewed the front of one and they seem fairly well adhered to the metal.

 

[e9999]

gosh, looks like the metal has been pulled up quite a bit too around the holes...
you gonna grind?
E

 

[Trunk Monkey]

That's just the silicon that's around the holes. Peels right off, complete with paint.

 

[onesprung60]

Mine are the same way, I took mine off to tighten the nutserts and re-seal everything. And the ribs in the middle have a double sided sticky tape that holds them down in the middle, it runs the entire length of the rib. By the way the ribs are screwed into nutserts at the front and back as well, so if you remove them you will have a bunch of holes in your roof. One more note I have installed a couple of these for customers, major PITA, you have to drill something like 30 holes in the roof. Not my favorite thing to do to a new car, especially an expensive one!

 

[Riley]

Do the nutserts for the ribs rust as much as the nutserts for the feet do?

I've the feet from my rack off and I'm in process of fixing the holes up. I'm not too keen on patching the holes for the ribs as well.

Riley

 

[Brentbba]

Has anyone ever had a body shop completely remove the nutserts, patch/repair and paint? Cost?

 

[cruiserdan]

If you remove the screws and end caps on the ribs they can be slid to the rear of the vehicle leaving the plastic rib track thingys stuck to the roof. Then you can scrape/peel the plastic track off.

Brent look at this thread that has some pics of what I did with my roof: https://forum.ih8mud.com/index.php?board=2;action=display;threadid=6445

There are a total of 16 inserts on the roof.

D-

 

[Brentbba]

Yep - saw that thread. Does look pretty good. Paintable? Wouldn't want to try with the Yota touch up paint I've got tho.

 

[syrinxstar]

What are people's thoughts on using black nylon 6/6 finishing washers and countersunk screws? Mcmaster has them available. You wouldn't have to worry about painting them but getting a good seal might still be an issue since they tend to swell with water.

 

[Bryan E.]

I've been wanting to take off the factory rack on my Cruiser, and some of the screws didn't budge. They wanted to strip the heads, so I am wondering if I spray WD-40 or PB Blaster into the hole will it mess up any paint if it leaks onto it? I don't want to ruin the rest of my paint, removing the screws, but do want it removed for a custom rack. What happens when you just can't remove the screw? Do you just drill the head off the the screw or is there a better way?
I like the stainless socket head screws and o-rings with silicon on the threads to seal the old holes like C-Dan did on his. These can be ordered in stainless with black oxide coating which is a military spec item. They will with stand corrosion even better than plain stainless.

Thanks
Bryan

 

[PHAEDRUS]

do not use pb blaster on your paint!!!!!
do not use wd 40 on anything!!!!!
try a bigger tip on your driver and if that fails it should drill out fairly easily. curious that it is stuck though these normally dont get too bad. if you do have to drill it out start with a really small hole on a fairly low speed. last thing you need is to break the nut sert loose from the roof.
Dave

 

[erics_bruisers]

how about the wind deflector -- should these loves be removed in the same manner too??



e

 

[Trunk Monkey]

I've had the sunroof deflector off and it's not as bad. It traps a lot of crap under there, but it screws into clips that go around the edge of the sunroof, not straight into the roof. It's definitely a good item to add to your list of things to clean when you're doing more than just hosing the truck off.

 

[tommyd]

If you remove the screws and end caps on the ribs they can be slid to the rear of the vehicle leaving the plastic rib track thingys stuck to the roof. Then you can scrape/peel the plastic track off.

Brent look at this thread that has some pics of what I did with my roof: https://forum.ih8mud.com/index.php?board=2;action=display;threadid=6445

There are a total of 16 inserts on the roof.

D-

I think Dan's link is broken; can someone please tell me how to search for a thread by ID # (i.e., threadid=6445)?

Alternatively, does anyone have any pics of these "rosette" washers, maybe even with a size? I looked at a couple of hardware stores today and just got funny looks when I asked for these.

Any reason to go with stainless steel over nylon hardware?

Thanks!
Tom

 

[Trunk Monkey]

Holy old thread resurrection.

Rosette (finish) washer:

In this application I don't see any advantage of nylon vs. stainless.

 

[tommyd]

Holy old thread resurrection.

Rosette (finish) washer:

In this application I don't see any advantage of nylon vs. stainless.

thanks Cory.

 

[jditom]

Has anyone ever had a body shop completely remove the nutserts, patch/repair and paint? Cost?

Yes, $800! And this was a top notch job. Welded and repainted. I can not tell where the old paint starts.

 

[Trunk Monkey]

And they should have them at a Home Depot, Lowe's or Ace, it's not a special order item, just FYI.

 

[cruiserdan]

Be sure to get stainless steel, not plated.

Here is the old photo: