Front-to-back raised roof rails (not racks)- what are some options?
Here's what I have, what I want, and what I am considering. I need a little guidance.
I have the flush factory side rails on my GX, which suck. I have a set of Inno mounts and crossbars which I have set up on those rails and they work fine, but I don't really like them. The mounts aren't confidence inspiring in the way they clamp to the inside lip of the factory track. Like so:
I want to run crossbars with awning mounts on the end, and a Yakima basket in the center. This would be put on only for trips and would not be run all the time. I currently have this below setup hanging in my garage rafters and it worked on the factory raised rails on my former 4Runner, and works on the factory raised rails on my wife's current Subaru Outback Wilderness.
What I probably really want are raised factory rails like in the GX460's Blackline edition. With those I could just swap the entire basket assembly over between vehicles and keep the setup the same on both cars with no unbolting, moving stuff around, etc. It's quick on/ quick off and super secure with the strap around Inno towers:
I have heard that all factory rails from the 470 will bolt right up to the 460, and obviously the 460 Blackline rails will bolt up, but factory ones are prohibitively expensive, used ones are hard to source, and the aftermarket ones look cheap as hell and I question how good they can be for $120 shipped from China. It appears the 4Runner OEM rails may also work, albeit without the middle bracket piece. Those
are readily available used, and cheap. I'm also unsure if I need to install the rubber trim strips in the channels that would be left by removing the low profile roof rails to maintain weatherproofing, or if those trim strips are purely cosmetic (in which case I don't care about them).
So I guess my questions are:
-Has anyone used a Chineseum OEM style aftermarket rail option successfully?
-What sort of weatherproofing do I need to do on an install?
-Are the rubber trim strips which fill the channels left by the removal of the flush rails necessary to ensure weatherproofing?
- Anyone use the 4Runner rails successfully?
EDIT - I ended up installing the 4R rails:
GX460 & GXOR B.S. thread - https://forum.ih8mud.com/threads/gx460-gxor-b-s-thread.1315456/page-83#post-15763733 :