When I rolled up to my tech's in my newly purchased LX450, Eric at Specialized in Urbana, IL, he asked "Where did I get the rack. I've been trying to get one of those for ages." Well, I bought the truck it was attached to I told him. Turns out I'd bought dogfishlake's sister's truck and it also came with a pair of very nice step sliders that are even more unique than the rack.
Don't get me wrong, I really like the Bowfin Cruiser rack, but I quickly modified it to suit me by dropping the crossbars about an 1" after stripping off the rub rails from the port-installed rack that the truck originally came with. I like a little "lip"around the inside perimeter of my racks in order to assist the contents in staying aboard. What this post is mostly about is my mod to host a Starlink Mini. This is the result.
As you can see it sticks out a little like a reefer unit on a semi-trailer, preserving space in the rack itself for cargo.
The Starlink is mounted in an Odin mount which tilts and rotates to. align the Starlink for best reception. It's not powered but can easily be reached when standing on the step slider. Recently I hung a Road Shock 11" light bar underneath it. None of it interferes with sight thru the windshield as the Starlink is above the line if sight and the light is mostly blocked from view by the rearview mirror.. In this positioin the light yield very little glare from the hood, mostly from the two GMRS antennas.
A turnbuckle-tensioned cable runs around the front of the Starlink mount, which helps dampen any motion. The arrangement also helped save the truck from actually being totaled after the inc co totaled it following my whoopsie near Silverton last years. See "Crash Tested " link in my sig line. The tree that stopped the truck from rolling down the mountain came across the windshield, snagging the cable and pulling the whole rack forward about 10". That kept the top of the windshield opening straight and undamaged while the inside of the driver's side A pillar was trashed, which is shy the ins co did what it did. The tree snagged the cable pulling the rack forward with no damage to it.
I bought it back and a donor truck supplied a new A-pillar. While the original Starlink and Odin were destroyed, the monunt just needed to bolt back together. My rebent air deflector proudly displays the Bowfin logo.
