Went sliding New Years Day. It was so cold the girls lasted 2 hours, my son and I about 3 1/2. After that we did donuts in the parking lot (#8 at Blackcomb) with a liberal amount of hand brake turns. The kids just love the Cruiser!!!
I did not find rust in the sheet metal of the roof arround the rib rails but did find some of the nutsets with light rust arround the screws, none of them spun,
the rail caps come off easily (or did for me) that coupled with your lack of rust on the main rail feet I would pull the rib screws and caps and get some reust preventative on those nutserts like break-free CLP and reinstall the caps, or take another aproach and seal them to keep water out so you do not have rust later on.
almost wish I had left the rails as I still have not finished getting the goo off the roof 6 months later, the main fire is out no drive to finsh the smoldering ashes
I've stopped by own towns 'new' and only Line-x business 5 times in the last week or so . Haven't seen anyone tending the place yet !
When I do catch someone at home , I'm going to be asking for specific advice on Line-x'ing the roof post rack removal .
If I go Line-x can I sidestep screwing some hardwear back into all the holes , and instead 'cover' the holes somehow ? If line-x adheres to the roof in some manner , would this be as simple as placing a pc of thin galvanized metal over them with some adhesive , and then allowing the line-x to fix it in place ?
Ty that would be pretty risky I think. Your roof likely flexes even without anyone stepping on it. Not sure I would trust lin-x to flex with it. Any cracking of the linex at any time means water gets in.
I can't recall whether you had bad news when you pulled your roofrack or not. If your nutserts are toast then the easiest thing is to remove them and use some appropriate sized pan head 1/2" ss metal screws with some metal friendly marine sealant. You could then linex over the top of that no problem and the screws would barely show.
Personally I would only linex little areas of the roof to cover the holes. That stuff is a pita to wash and will raise the temp of your roof several hundred degrees in summer. You could shape them like they are supposed to be step-pads (maybe some hang 10 feet or bathtub flowers ) )
I removed my rack along with the rails a few days ago. There was no rust under the rails or the end caps but I haven't removed all of the adhesive yet. There was a little rust inside a couple of the rivnuts. Nothing like the rust belt guys have to deal with but IH8RUST.
Going on a tip from fAvE, I bought the rubber eraser wheel that you use in an electric drill. 30 seconds to remove about 12" of the adhesive under the 4 strips. That's the way to do it!
As for the holes, I am going with "sealing washers" as posted by another forum member (e9999999 I think.) They are galvanized with neoprene rubber on one side. I'm using 10-32 by 1/2" SS button caps with an allen head. I had to rush the job because it started raining a couple of days ago and I didn't want to leave the holes in the roof. The rain is also why I haven't finished removing the adhesive. Believe it or not, it's still raining. Very unusual. When I go back to the riv-nut holes I will seal each with an automotive silicone seal that is non-corrosive and paint friendly.
How are you planning to handle the 4 pad areas where they got through the paint?
The 4 pads on mine have worn through the clear coat but did not get down to the metal. I'm not worried about rust but I would like it to look a little better.
Ty - line-x on the roof might not be a bad idea. I have bed-liner stuff on the sides of my rig (in place of the LX plastic "body armor" and flares). The stuff I have is pretty flexible. I would think it would have to be based on its original purpose -- to take a beating on the bed of a truck.
As far as brands go, I didn't go with line-x (the brand) because my local line-x dealer wanted 3 times the $$$$ that others were willing to charge for the same job. The ass-hat who quoted the job had around $800 in labor alone
Some brands of spray-on bed liner can be tinted to match the color of your rig's paint. I saw a job done by Mudrack on an 80. He had the liner color matching the rig's existing paint color almost perfectly. Mudrack uses Superliner, but I'm sure other brands are tintable.
As far as excess heat issues...I don't think you'll have a problem with that where you live -- way up there in the wilds of Canada.
If you decide to do it, make sure they mask off everything VERY well.
One more thing. You can plug up the holes with short rounded top metal screws or use metal tape (which they did with the 100 or so holes I had to deal with). Heck, even a little bondo (sanded down to be smooth with the top, but not necessarily perfect) will do the trick -- all you really need is something to temporarily plug up the hole while the liner goo is sprayed on. The down-side to the metal tape is that it can flex a little when the liner is sprayed on. This flexing results in small indentations in the end result where the tape was.
If the rivnuts are not too bad, when I do this I was thinking about just having the footprint of the roof-rack Line-X'd on the roof of the rig, and then put the thing back on. I figure that would keep the feet from exposing metal and causing rust. There would be no holes to worry about. Silicon could be used to keep water out. Bad idea?
For that matter wouldn't there be a more cost effective solution that would accomplish the same thing? Some type of DIY spray on sealant? If your just doing the foot print it wouldn't show anyway.
FWIW, even though several of my nutserts had some rust and were spinning, the rails were generally fine. No rust at all.
Funny what RT says, same here, had a major fight with the roof for days in end, did 99% of the job, but have not brought myself to do the the last touchup bit... saturated...
OK, I am going to keep the ribs for now. Thanks for the feedback.
b-wulf I will use one of those toyota touch up paint pens with the OEM colour to "pencil in" the worn area after prepping it a little with a dremel. I think a grid pattern of line-x or the rattle can dupliliner stuff might look cool but I am worried about what a mess it would be to get it off and get at the holes if there was ever a failure of the line-x. Maybe I'll do it if the touch up looks lousy and also after I remove the ribs, if I ever do.
I am interested to hear you are going to use galvanized washers. My science is lousy but on boats they say never mix your metals if you want to avoid corrosion, so I am not sure about stainless steel screwed into galvanized steel screwed into plain old steel.
looking back at my roof job mess (see other posts) in retrospect I should have kept the rails on too. No real reason to take them off once it became clear there was no rust under. Some looked suspicious, though, which is why I removed them. But figured out they'd be easy to put back on if desired. And they should be.
Looks better without them though.
Btw, the pen bottle touchup gizmo did not work for me at all. Paint way too thick for big areas.
I just returned from my Line-x rep . We talked about prep , the coatings and pricing .
I will remove the rack and rails , and take a 3M wheel to the adhesive under the rails before showing up . He will sand off the clearcoat in a pattern I specify to be Line-X'd . Next he will Line-X those taped off areas , and that includes a UV protector as well . The UV component is in the black paint he will be using in the product .
He originally quoted me $400 for the job + $150 for colour matching . My eyes bugged out of my head , and I said whooa ! Even an entire truck box is less than that ! He thought about it and said 'yeah , when you put it that way .. you're right !'
He re-quoted me $100 CDN ($80 USD) and free UV , because I'll just use the black paint he has around already rather than ordering in my grey .
He showed me samples and impressed upon me that it would not delaminate or leak ... and that it came with a lifetime warrantee . As far as the screw holes , he said they will not be any trouble ... small amout of tape should be fine . When the product bonds to the roof thats it ... it's all sealed .