I have many things I want to do to my cruiser bouncing around in my head. Some I get to right away and some are in the save for later file. Lately a roof rack has been floating up towards the get it done area. I've looked at many pre made racks and there are several I like. However, I have also been contemplating building my own. Here's why...
Around us most of the trails are pretty tight. On more than one occasion I have contacted a tree with the rain gutter on my cruiser. Mostly paint scrapes but did dent it once (was able to straighten). This has got me to thinking about armor up there. Has anyone seen a roof rack that sticks out past the edge of the vehicle? I was thinking of using some aluminum tube and have it stick out about an inch or so past the edge of the rain gutter. That way the rack would contact the trees first and act as sort of a slider, distributing the weight along the entire rack vs just at the point of contact.
Now having never had a rack that used the rain gutter mounts this idea may be flawed. Do the racks have side to side movement if force is applied parallel to the plane of the roof? If so it may just get pushed over and serve no purpose. Also do you all think that because of the potential force involved that the rain gutter mounts would cause more damage than just letting the tree hit it? I had considered using at least 4 mounting points per side, maybe 5 or 6 to spread any potential loads out.
Interested in thoughts on my hairbrained idea. If you think it's destined to fail please speak up but also tell me why you feel that way. It will likely still be a while before I get to actually building it but would be good to know if it's worth trying or not.
Around us most of the trails are pretty tight. On more than one occasion I have contacted a tree with the rain gutter on my cruiser. Mostly paint scrapes but did dent it once (was able to straighten). This has got me to thinking about armor up there. Has anyone seen a roof rack that sticks out past the edge of the vehicle? I was thinking of using some aluminum tube and have it stick out about an inch or so past the edge of the rain gutter. That way the rack would contact the trees first and act as sort of a slider, distributing the weight along the entire rack vs just at the point of contact.
Now having never had a rack that used the rain gutter mounts this idea may be flawed. Do the racks have side to side movement if force is applied parallel to the plane of the roof? If so it may just get pushed over and serve no purpose. Also do you all think that because of the potential force involved that the rain gutter mounts would cause more damage than just letting the tree hit it? I had considered using at least 4 mounting points per side, maybe 5 or 6 to spread any potential loads out.
Interested in thoughts on my hairbrained idea. If you think it's destined to fail please speak up but also tell me why you feel that way. It will likely still be a while before I get to actually building it but would be good to know if it's worth trying or not.