Recently received & mounted my Prinsu cab rack and wanted to share some details/thoughts on the rack and the install process...
First, the finished product (with the exception of the front windscreen which was mistakenly left out of the box that was sent to me):
Each side of the cab has a strip of weatherstripping rubber, underneath which are five threads/nuts to which roof racks can be attached. The Prinsu rack requires that holes be drilled in this weatherstripping and tall spacers be installed in the newly-drilled holes, on which the rack then sits. This process is a pain - a huge one. First, the weather stripping has a thin metal rod running through it, so you have to cut that out from the bottom side of the weatherstripping. Then you can drill a 3/4" hole from the top of the weatherstripping, but due to being a soft rubber, the material moves around a ton and makes it borderline impossible to drill a hole with any precision. Even when the weatherstripping is clamped down to the work surface, it still manages to move around where you're drilling.
With the holes drilled, you apply a generous amount of silicone on/around the holes with the threads, re-install the weatherstripping, install the spacers, place the rack on top, and then bolt everything down. The big problem here is that the threads in the roof are not perfectly vertical. Most of mine were at a rather big angle, I'm guesstimating the 20-30 degree range. According to my mechanic buddy at Toyota, and some reports I've read online, this is very much "normal" for Tacomas and should be expected. This "angle issue," combined with imperfectly-located holes that you just drilled through the weatherstripping makes it
incredibly hard to get the bolts started and actually tighten down the rack. (Don't forget that you're on the clock as silicone is drying!) Prinsu's instructions recommended assembling the rack on a level surface, and then placing it on the roof. I tried this approach, but had to remove numerous cross bars when the rack was on the roof, to give myself that extra bit of access and flexibility in moving the rack around so that I could get the threads started. I would suggest simply placing the two rack sides on the roof, getting those threads started, and then assembling the cross-bars.
So, the end result is a rack that does not sit perfectly in contact with the spacers:
Tightening things down further is a bit risky - the bolt is tough to turn, and it's possible to rip the threads out altogether from using too much force. This is not a Prinsu issue, but rather a Tacoma issue. Likely to be expected on most of these trucks, with most of the rack setups available out there.
As for the rack itself, having used a FrontRunner rack before (which I still own), I'm left with a feeling of not being entirely happy with the Prinsu. It is not up to par with the FrontRunner stuff - not by a
long shot.
Here are examples of things that stand out as being small issues...
The cross bars simply bolt-in to the sides of the rack. There's no support below them at all, which means that all of the weight that's placed on the cross bar is resting on the two bolts. I'm sure this will work fine for the light loads I'm expecting to carry on my roof, but it does not instill a sense of confidence. It never occurred to me to research this detail ahead of time. By comparison, on FRO racks, the cross bar first slides into a channel, resulting in the entire width of the cross bar being supported above and below itself by the channel, and is then tightened down with a vertical bolt, through the channel and cross bar. Much, much better design.
If you decide to move a cross bar after having previously mounted it elsewhere, you are left with marks at the previous location. This was not over-tightened at all:
No such issues with FRO racks.
The cross bars themselves are made from regular 80/20 Inc components, so you could easily order more of them straight from the manufacturer, without having to go through either CBI or Prinsu. The downside here is that there's no hole for "entry" into the c-channel, so you have to unbolt the cross bar from the rack in order to slide anything into the c-channel. If you have something resting on the far side of the same cross bar you're trying to unbolt, you'd have to remove that item. Not only is this going to be a pain in the butt, but it'll also add unnecessary wear & tear on the torx bolts that hold the cross bar in place.
With my FRO rack and cross bars I've come to take for granted the ability to slide an M8 bolt head in any time I want, without disassembling anything. Further, with these 80/20 extrusions, you can't just slide any old hardware in there - you've got to use stuff that's specifically shaped for this extrusion, so forget being able to go to your local hardware store and pick up what you need in minutes, and get used to ordering it from 80/20. A small pain that I hadn't thought to foresee ahead of time, but definitely worth considering.
The powdercoat finish on the rack's sides is also not too great. Look at all the flaking around the edges of the (totally unnecessary) logo. This is present on both sides of the rack:
All in all, keeping in mind the ~2 month-long wait for this to be manufactured (vs. FrontRunner, RhinoRack, and other competitors being pretty much always in stock and ready to go), I can't say I'm thrilled with the rack. I do like the Prinsu's look (I didn't initially, but it grew on me), and I
love how tight it sits to the cab, but other than that, it has nothing going for it that puts it above other options. The slightly more expensive FrontRunner rack will very likely suffer from the same installation pain (as it's more of a truck issue), but the rack itself will be 10x the product. And I suspect RhinoRack products to be just as good (wish I had considered them earlier!).
Food for thought.
