I have a pair of Yakima clamp on roof racks for my Toyota Matrix.
Problem is the rear bar sits pretty far forward. I don’t have a great deal of distance between the two bars.
I’d like to add a bar at the rear for extra leverage AND also to serve as a pivot point so I can load my canoe solo by propping one end on the bar and the shoving it up onto the roof (instead of loading it from the side which requires a full lift).
Any ideas for a homemade solution?
I made wooden “end bars” that cover the ends of my Thule bars. I use them to load kayaks from the side of the car. You could make something similar, extend the end bars toward the back of the car and then make a padded cross bar. If your Yakima bars are the simple round bars, it would be easy to counterbore some holes into the end bars to engage the ends of the Thule bars. To hold the end bars in place, I have a 1/4 x 20 threaded rod that goes all the way through from one side of the car to the other. There’s a counterbored hole under each of the round, black plastic caps in the photo. There are nuts and washers under there to tighten up the threaded rod.
Keep in mind that by having an extra cantilevered load point extending that far back, you’ll put a lot of extra load on the rear clamps during loading that could possibly dent your roof.
Go to your local Wally-World and get a rubber backed bath mat. Put the bathmat, rubber side down on the back of the car, rest the boat on it, and use it to slide the boat up on to the rack. Don’t forget to take the matt with you when your all loaded.
Very slick, Wolf. I like it.
Leob1 – I love it, except for the “Don’t forget to take the mat when you’re all loaded” part. I can’t begin to say how many items I’ve lost from the top of my car. That said, it’s definitely worth a try.
Yakima makes slider bar that extends back.
