Yakima End caps

Does anyone have an easy method to remove the end caps on Yakima crossbars?

in my experience
you’ve got to cut them out.

Want to save them?
If the bars haven’t rusted too much, take the bar in hand (off the car mind you) placing the end on the ground. Wearing shoes, rock onto your toes and squeeze your heels around the bar, then settle onto your heels and give the bar a yank. If it’s coming out, this will do it.



If that doesn’t work and you need to remove the endcap, jab a screw driver through the middle of the endcap and pry it off.



About 10-15 years ago, Yakima starting galvanizing their bars. Prior to that they rusted from the inside out and caused all kinds of problems. The galvanized bars no longer suffer from this.

Stuck Yakima endcaps
Ditto the comments about the way that these endcaps rust in on old bars. Like Nermal, I’ve had to puncture the caps and then either pry out or cut them out, depending on how deeply the rust had embedded in them. In addition, if the end of the bar has rusted, its outer diameter will have swollen, so new endcaps may be hard to place over that widened diameter. I’ve had to saw a half-inch to an inch off each end of the bars to get past the rusting in order to get new caps on…

Getting new endcaps on
The trick is just to put them in really hot water to make them more pliable.

Cut them off and throw them away
they are just for looks anyway.

I think mine might be in the glove compartment if I haven’t thrown them away



But if you really want to get them off with out damaging them, just apply some heat, and then use one of those non skid, rubber mat thingy wingys that you open screw on jar lids with or stop slippery things from sliding across a table.



Cheers,

JackL

Heat
I did try heating them with a heat gun with some success as they did budge a little. What I will try later today is some boiling hot water.

such as the ends expanding
making it near impossible to remove towers installed on them.



Needed a strong saw to saw the ends off.

Tried
The Boiling water thing with the end caps. I did manage to get them off but not in one piece so don’t bother wasting your time just use the screwdriver and pliers to yank them out.

C4
Just watch out for collateral damage.

C4
I will keep that in mind.

Wally World
I just happen to be in Walmart this morning and I found these rubber chair tips(1") which fit the crossbars perfectly. Four for $1.82 so the price is right just don’t know how long they will last.

Once upon a time
I was hung up on having my Yakima bar caps just so, with the logos all lined up horizontally.



But I soon came to realalize that teh Yaks did a lousy job of keeping moisture out of the bars. I tried LPS-3 to minimize the rust. I tried 90-weight motor oil. What a mess.



Drill/Chop/Blast the stock end caps from your bars, go to a big-box store and buy rubber chair tips (but I believe you need 1-1/8" to fit properly.)



Buy white if you want them to be visible; Buy black for more UV resistance. Your outlook on life will improve, your terminal flatulance will be cured, and little children will throw candies at you. Life will be good.



Jim

1"
Worked fine and you can remove them with minimal effort at least when there new.

Yakima accessory caps
Yakima actually makes accessory caps that protrude a little from the bottoms of the bars when attached so lines won’t pull off the ends. They screw on/and off, so are easier than the stock ends to remove (have a screw end internal clamp that holds them in place. Are relatively inexpensive, around $10. Ask your dealer.



Bill H.

Never seen
Those before but will check them out as they look interesting.

Yakima Strap Caps
These are the removable end caps they also prevent your straps from sliding off the bars.



http://www.altrec.com/yakima/strap-caps-set

wow
thats a cool idea…

It is a strange and peculiar…
…parade of life that passeth before thee, Jim.



Per stray smudge on my monitor, for the life of me I could not figure why passing children would throw “candles” at you. But, per scroll of the mouse, no matter.



Now, I contemplate, once again, these strange visions that sometimes come to vex me. I am seeing the annual Woodlawn Little League Opening Day Parade. Opposed to all those many prior processions, wherein the little children suffered not but of each other, swarming and clamoring about the Deccomin’s Citgo Float in their attempts to harvest and horde hurled candy strewn in its wake, they’re now chasing it like a swarm of besmited hornets. They hurl handfuls of Goldenberg Peanut Chews, Smarties packs, and green-wrappered Tootsie Pops at the station manager, who cowers behind the styrofoam likeness of an ICBM Minuteman emblazoned, “America Stands For Freedom!” He looks a little like Burl Ives in snowman mid-meltdown.



The kids, their voices pitched like a wailing-wall pack of Pink Floyded Brit Brats (w/bats), scream:



“We don’t need no flatulation! You could use some self control!”





Anyway, Yakima end caps, right? Try’n to get those suckers off after they resided 13-years atop my wife’s ill-fated Outback! Whew! Then there was those two towers (of near Tolkiien terror!), not the "J"s or “Q”'s but the ones that clamp onto the Subaru’s side rails! 13 years of of non-shifting grip!



They charitably left with the car on a Jerr-Dan.

R.I.P. Tom.
I know you shed a tear when it went.



Jim