For this season, to save some money (let’s be honest, to spend money on other land cruiser upgrades) I installed my Roofnest Condor XL (very similar to iKamper 2.0) on my factory cross bars. The Condor is 160lbs.
One of the biggest challenges was room to fit the wrench and my hand between the cross bar and the roof of the LC since the cross bar sits low. Also, the bolts that roofnest provided were very long and after it settled in, actually made contact with the LC roof in a location. In hindsight, I should have delayed the install and purchased shorter bolts.
To raise the RTT up to make it slightly easier to wrench down and to prevent the long bolts from damaging my roof, I wedged rubber pieces on the top side of my cross bar and the bottom mounting rail of the RTT. This elevated it all about a 1/4” and gave me a little clearance to work and to prevent bolt damage on roof. For the rubber I went to Lowe’s and purchased a rubber pipe coupler that I cut into squares with tin shears.
To increase stability, due to the factory cross bars having some flex, after the tent is deployed, I wedge in triangle shaped rubber boat trailer parts I got from Bass Pro, after a tip from someone on the roofnest forum. This supports the tent not only on the cross bars, but across an additional 4 points on the roof rack rail itself, and really makes the set up solid.
So the combination of rubber strips above the cross bar and rubber wedges, the set up is pretty sturdy enough, to use this season (and possibly longer) until I stop spending money on other land cruiser things and buy a slim line racks.
just wanted to share!
One of the biggest challenges was room to fit the wrench and my hand between the cross bar and the roof of the LC since the cross bar sits low. Also, the bolts that roofnest provided were very long and after it settled in, actually made contact with the LC roof in a location. In hindsight, I should have delayed the install and purchased shorter bolts.
To raise the RTT up to make it slightly easier to wrench down and to prevent the long bolts from damaging my roof, I wedged rubber pieces on the top side of my cross bar and the bottom mounting rail of the RTT. This elevated it all about a 1/4” and gave me a little clearance to work and to prevent bolt damage on roof. For the rubber I went to Lowe’s and purchased a rubber pipe coupler that I cut into squares with tin shears.
To increase stability, due to the factory cross bars having some flex, after the tent is deployed, I wedge in triangle shaped rubber boat trailer parts I got from Bass Pro, after a tip from someone on the roofnest forum. This supports the tent not only on the cross bars, but across an additional 4 points on the roof rack rail itself, and really makes the set up solid.
So the combination of rubber strips above the cross bar and rubber wedges, the set up is pretty sturdy enough, to use this season (and possibly longer) until I stop spending money on other land cruiser things and buy a slim line racks.
just wanted to share!
