Hi Gang!
Here are a few notes as to how I created my roof rack. First off the whole system is based off of the excellent Gamiviti 100 series roof rack towers, I opted to utilize all four factory available mounting points. I mounted the towers and sealed them with liberal amounts of Permatex gasket maker #2. The #2 is important as it signifies that it's a non hardening sealant that will still maintain its seal while allowing for a small tiny little bit of flex that may occur during use and it will also allow removal of the hardware if ever needed.
For the main frame of the rack I used very commonly available "uni-strut" metal channel from home depot. I used the skinny channel as the deeper strut has a higher profile, weighs more and would be drastically overkill. I used uni-strut single hole per side 90 degree angle brackets as the connectors please reference the pictures to see how I oriented the strut and angle brackets. I mostly used 3/8" bolts, and lots of fender washers along with lock washers for the fasteners instead of the suggested uni-strut hardware. I first mounted the main four cross bars to each pair of towers, I chose to cut all cross bars at 52" wide. Once the main 4 cross bars were mounted to the towers I was able to mount the 2 long bars that run the length of the car.
I made the long bars 90" long, and made sure to mount them so that the finished rack did not make contact with the rear hatch when fully open. Once the two long bars were mounted I added the front and rear most cross bars followed by two additional cross bars within the more open areas of rack, to create a little better load distribution. It takes alot of fine tuning and messing about to make sure all the parts line up well.
Once I was happy with the fit up and alignment I unbloted it from the towers and had my wife help me lift the rack off the car. I chose to spray paint the metal frame after deburring and thoroughly cleaning the metal with acetone. I made an almost embarrassingly simple rotisserie paint pivot system with some metal rods, zip ties a ladder and a random stand I had laying around. This rotisserie made it suuuuuper easy to paint the whole rack and allowed excellent access to the inside walls of the uni-strut channel. I used primer first followed by gloss black spray paint.
While the paint hardened up for a couple days I cut and prepped the six Ipe wood runners that lay on top of the rack. The wood is to prevent my load from rubbing the paint off the metal rack and it looks cool!!! Ipe is a very hard durable wood that is well suited for exterior applications. I finished it fully on all sides with dalys brand seafin teak oil, it's a very thin penetrating oil that is easy to maintain. I temporarily re mounted the rack to determine how close to the outer edges I could mount the 2 outer most wood rails without them interfering with the tower mounting bolts. Then I pulled the rack back off laid out the 6 wood rails evenly and mounted them from below using small stainless wood screws and stainless fender washers. I used 2 screws at each place the wood contacted the metal rack, which is alot of screws and fender washers (pre drilling with a depth stop of course!)
The last couple additions I plan to add will be wood rub rails on the outer most edges of each the driver and passenger sides of the rack and also some sort of wind fairing (maybe made from wood!!!)
This is a very stout rack, it's not super light like some others but I like it, I built it myself and it has a mess of places to secure things. In all I bet I have about $500 into building it.
Hope this is interesting to some!
Here are a few notes as to how I created my roof rack. First off the whole system is based off of the excellent Gamiviti 100 series roof rack towers, I opted to utilize all four factory available mounting points. I mounted the towers and sealed them with liberal amounts of Permatex gasket maker #2. The #2 is important as it signifies that it's a non hardening sealant that will still maintain its seal while allowing for a small tiny little bit of flex that may occur during use and it will also allow removal of the hardware if ever needed.
For the main frame of the rack I used very commonly available "uni-strut" metal channel from home depot. I used the skinny channel as the deeper strut has a higher profile, weighs more and would be drastically overkill. I used uni-strut single hole per side 90 degree angle brackets as the connectors please reference the pictures to see how I oriented the strut and angle brackets. I mostly used 3/8" bolts, and lots of fender washers along with lock washers for the fasteners instead of the suggested uni-strut hardware. I first mounted the main four cross bars to each pair of towers, I chose to cut all cross bars at 52" wide. Once the main 4 cross bars were mounted to the towers I was able to mount the 2 long bars that run the length of the car.
I made the long bars 90" long, and made sure to mount them so that the finished rack did not make contact with the rear hatch when fully open. Once the two long bars were mounted I added the front and rear most cross bars followed by two additional cross bars within the more open areas of rack, to create a little better load distribution. It takes alot of fine tuning and messing about to make sure all the parts line up well.
Once I was happy with the fit up and alignment I unbloted it from the towers and had my wife help me lift the rack off the car. I chose to spray paint the metal frame after deburring and thoroughly cleaning the metal with acetone. I made an almost embarrassingly simple rotisserie paint pivot system with some metal rods, zip ties a ladder and a random stand I had laying around. This rotisserie made it suuuuuper easy to paint the whole rack and allowed excellent access to the inside walls of the uni-strut channel. I used primer first followed by gloss black spray paint.
While the paint hardened up for a couple days I cut and prepped the six Ipe wood runners that lay on top of the rack. The wood is to prevent my load from rubbing the paint off the metal rack and it looks cool!!! Ipe is a very hard durable wood that is well suited for exterior applications. I finished it fully on all sides with dalys brand seafin teak oil, it's a very thin penetrating oil that is easy to maintain. I temporarily re mounted the rack to determine how close to the outer edges I could mount the 2 outer most wood rails without them interfering with the tower mounting bolts. Then I pulled the rack back off laid out the 6 wood rails evenly and mounted them from below using small stainless wood screws and stainless fender washers. I used 2 screws at each place the wood contacted the metal rack, which is alot of screws and fender washers (pre drilling with a depth stop of course!)
The last couple additions I plan to add will be wood rub rails on the outer most edges of each the driver and passenger sides of the rack and also some sort of wind fairing (maybe made from wood!!!)
This is a very stout rack, it's not super light like some others but I like it, I built it myself and it has a mess of places to secure things. In all I bet I have about $500 into building it.
Hope this is interesting to some!
