I had to pay extra to have the dealer put those “aerodynamic” longitudinal “racks” on the car when I bought it (they really are useless on their own since they don’t cross the roof, but that is what car companies do these days – probably in cahoots with the makers of transverse rack systems and so they can bleed customers with there own accessory versions.)
I wish car makers would just go back to having sturdy “rain gutter” protrusions along the edges of the roof above the doors. Back in the 60’s and 70’s most cars had those and I could switch my $20 set of Qwik’n’Easy brackets with home-made adjustable width wooden crossbars to any of my cars, from my the '55 Chevy wagon to the '61 Jeep to the '70 Ford Maverick to the '78 Datsun B210 and BMW 320i to the '88 Caravan.
I wasn’t sure if I should start a new thread about my DIY roof rack so I’m going to bump this one. We recently acquired a canoe so we needed a way to haul it. Since we live in the desert, there’s no way around having to transport it a fair distance, so we wanted something safe and secure.
I have used vibration damping u-bolts and strut channel before to make racks for our Xterra to haul camping and offroad gear, so it was just a matter of getting slightly longer strut channel pieces for the canoe.
These are 48" wide and I am using some angle brackets to keep the canoe centered. The back ones are bolted into place after the canoe is strapped down. The slightly greater width at the center of the canoe helps insure that it isn’t likely to slide fore or aft.
So far it has been rock solid at highway speeds. Next phase is going to add some way to haul paddles, probably underneath the crossbars so that they’re out of the way when loading and unloading the canoe.
Looks nice and tidy for a DIY solution. I was expecting 2x4’s and duct tape…
To be fair, I’ve used duct tape before, but only to attach a tube to carry Greenland paddles. My temporary solution lasted over a year and would have lasted longer if the truck hadn’t given up the ghost.
Where did you source the channel and end caps? Is it just powder coated steel, or something more corrosion resistant?
Looks like a very nice set-up. Uni-strut channel components are great for such projects (like an adult Erector Set, for those of us ancient enough to recall that building toy).
The only suggestion I would add would be to loop your cam straps around the factory lateral rails as well as (even instead of) the rack you have built. I do that even with my Thule racks. The safety purpose of a rack is to keep the boat with the car – wrapping the straps around the hardware that is most firmly attached to the vehicle is better insurance, especially when you consider the forces that can be applied in a crash or even a very sudden stop. I think of the rack bars as a support for the boat but secure the boat itself directly to factory rack in case the parts connecting the rack to the car laterals fail.
@Sparky961 said:
Looks nice and tidy for a DIY solution. I was expecting 2x4’s and duct tape…
To be fair, I’ve used duct tape before, but only to attach a tube to carry Greenland paddles. My temporary solution lasted over a year and would have lasted longer if the truck hadn’t given up the ghost.
Where did you source the channel and end caps? Is it just powder coated steel, or something more corrosion resistant?
Thanks, it’s working well so far.
I have been purchasing through McMaster Carr for the strut and other materials.
They are powder coated steel. I also have a set of crossbars in stainless, but they’re only 40" long since I cut a 10’ stick into three pieces. I got a good deal on the stainless channel and didn’t realize how expensive it normally is, or I would have purchased more of them. As far as corrosion, this vehicle is a three season camping and exploring truck and these crossbars won’t see any road salt nor winter driving, so for my use I think it’ll be fine.
@willowleaf said:
Looks like a very nice set-up. Uni-strut channel components are great for such projects (like an adult Erector Set, for those of us ancient enough to recall that building toy).
The only suggestion I would add would be to loop your cam straps around the factory lateral rails as well as (even instead of) the rack you have built. I do that even with my Thule racks. The safety purpose of a rack is to keep the boat with the car – wrapping the straps around the hardware that is most firmly attached to the vehicle is better insurance, especially when you consider the forces that can be applied in a crash or even a very sudden stop. I think of the rack bars as a support for the boat but secure the boat itself directly to factory rack in case the parts connecting the rack to the car laterals fail.
Thank you, strut channel is cool stuff!
I’ll definitely consider what you said about the placement of the straps. The roof rails are attached to the roof with rivnuts, which aren’t super strong, but there are many of them. My strut crossbars are attached to the rails with 3/8" bolts, so I feel they’re quite strong, but connected with a smaller number of points. I guess if something is happening that makes the rails fail, you’re having a really bad day, but maybe looping around those rails is more secure than around my crossbars.
That’s just a great way to take advantage of those big tubular roof rails on your XTERRA.
I like to use small pieces of one inch acrylic tubing slit up the side to protect the gunnels on my canoe since they don’t come off as easily as pieces of foam pipe insulation.
I love strut. I was a construction electrician for many years (a Sparkette!) and we used tons of it for conduit, lighting, cable tray and transformer supports. You can build anything with that stuff and the connector parts are endless. I used to have the B-Line strut catalog and it was as thick as a small city phone book!
@outback97 said:
Next phase is going to add some way to haul paddles, probably underneath the crossbars so that they’re out of the way when loading and unloading the canoe.
I thought I should follow up on this. We went on a >500 mile camping trip this past weekend and I wanted the paddles up top, but not in the way of loading / unloading the canoe. Here’s what I came up with last week.
I used some aluminum angle at 1.5" x 2.5" x .125" thick, some rubber trim and a couple of mini quick fists. Bolted these to the bottom of my strut crossbars and it worked great for our trip.
We have a smaller third paddle that I may add a slot for, but it’s short enough to fit inside behind the rear seats so not really necessary to keep it up on the roof.
