Roof rack

[nevada88]

With a family of 4 and too many toys, I need to put a rack on my truck. Has anyone used the Yakima brackets on their fiberglass top. From looking at it there is space between the top of the window and what looks to be a support that would be about the right height for the bracket and the raingutter towers. Yakima doesn't recommend it in their fitment guide but I'm not thrilled with their solution either. I hate to put holes in my top, cuz if there's a hole it "will" leak, it's just a matter of when. Any suggestions????

 

[Skigirl]

I mounted the Con Ferr rack with the well nuts they provide. Drilled 1/2" holes (IIRC) and it has never leaked. I'm sure at some point those well nuts would need to be replaced. But no problems so far and it's been a couple years.

 

[nevada88]

thanks Skigirl, did you put the bolts through the top and did you pay special attention to their location?

 

[Skigirl]

The supplied well nuts do not go all the way thru the top. IIRC they are less than 3/4" deep and as the rack attachment hinges rest on the outer curved part of the top, and there's some extra space there between the inner and outer top skin, the nuts just sit in that space. With the hinges resting over the nuts and the whole thing pretty tightly cranked down, I can't imagine a leak problem until the rubber on the well nut starts to deteriorate. That should take a while, as it has no sun expose.

As to rack position, I needed to mount it as far to the rear as possible, because the PO drilled a hole thru the top of the cab at and thru the roll bar (idiot) to mount an antenna. The easiest way to handle that hole was to continue to use it as an antenna mounting position. So, the rack had to be mounted aft of that, entirely on the fiberglass top.