L300 Roof Racks

[sooperAndy]

Greetings all,
I have a roof rack question. I need to put some roof racks on my new delica, for hauling construction material. The Delica is my new work truck. However, i cannot haul 12' 2x4's or long lengths of soffit/fascia inside. I am in the process of building some stack shelving for the back to carry my tools, and need racking to haul material. I have a l300 crystal roof. My question is this: i have access to a welder (the guy, and the machine) to build the racking, however, i don't know how to attach the feet to the drip rail. I understand the uprights should be between 3 and 4 inches wide, and i will probably put some extra supports in the middle of the roof to deflect some weight away from the drip rail, but i don't know what to do to clamp the feet onto the ledge. Does anyone have any pictures of theirs that they have made/made up? I will probably be putting 8 feet (4 per side) and an additional 3 feet down the middle for a 9' long rack. The rack needs to be pretty beefy to haul material (plywood, drywall, framing material) and the occasional time myself climbing up there. I would also be interested if someone had a rack for sale???!!!

thank you for your time
-Andrew

[philmeup1]

Hi Andy,
I have a crystal Lite roof L300 and I purchased some Thule racks that are pretty sweet. They're not cheap but clear the roof and are of excellent quality.

I believe the code for the feet that attach to the drip rails is 953. You can go on the Thule site for all of the specs ect. Good luck, Phil

[alti2d]

Sorry it's not a closer, cropped photo, but...

This is how my rack attaches. Each foot rests in the drip rail, welded crosswise to the basket foot (you can see this just behind the snorkel head) is a round tube with a hole drilled in. A bolt goes through the hole and is welded to a flat plate which hooks the underside of the drip rail. Voila. The nuts tighten down and are nylon locking nuts, it's never moved nor fallen off, so it must be good, right?

The attaching hooked plate was dipped or coated in a rubberized protection, and the rack included small neoprene/rubber foot pieces to protect the paintwork from the metal feet resting in the drip rail.

Good luck.


Untitled by highalti2d, on Flickr

[sooperAndy]

thank you thank you very much. that is exactly what i needed. i will be able to fabricate based on that picture. do you have any idea as to the neoprene/rubberized coating that was used? What it is, and where i could get some?

[alti2d]

Not really too sure what the rubber coating is. I had it fabbed up by Asorenson (his www.delica.ca username) on the island. Not sure if he's still on the site but perhaps you could PM him? The rubber pieces for the feet were just loose 1-2 mm thick rubber bits (2"x4" or so). I don't think it'd be hard to find something similar walking through crappy tire. Perhaps even a thin rubber floor mat or something would do the trick.

[Pajero]

maybe you could use something like plasti dip? http://www.plastidip.com/home_solutions/Plasti_Dip to coat the metal.


Joe

[yojimbo]

Production roof bars I've had are usually plastic coated. Welders that do a lot of fabricating will know somewhere to go to get them coated.

[sooperAndy]

thanks a lot... apparently Home Hardware carries Plasti-dip for $20... so when i fabricate up a roof rack, i will just do that. AAAANNNDDD, i will post pics.

speaking of which, i should take a picture of my delica and introduce myself in the proper forum.

[MitsuBeasti]

Hi SooperAndy, I use bits of cut bicycle inner tubing, 2 layers is good if you can fit in in depending on the gauge you use, to protect the rain gutter. Just replace it every year or so. Get if free at bike repair shops.

Make the metal legs as wide as possible, 3 to 4 inches wide at a MINIMUM, measured at the feet / bottom where it sits in the gutter, on both pieces of each leg. I saw one 5 inches, but that seemed a bit wide. Narrow feet will bend the gutter over time, sag down. The silver gutter cover is a plastic piece, which most people just bolt over, but it will permanently mar your plastic.

THe L300 roof itself curves a lot more than one thinks, and hence each pair of legs is a different height. Also, avoid aluminum to span across the width, with weight and time those primary bars will sag down towards the roof.

Position the legs over the areas not directly above a window, to get the strength of the pillars that surround the windows. Ensure the back of the rack is set ahead and not overhanging the rear door, so you can lift the rear door hatch. Have you done the tailgate lift, ie swapped the gas shocks from either side to use the E extended height setting, only looks like 1 inch difference at the bolt, but the angle is increased over the length of the gas shock to give about 5 inches extra height at the bottom the door (this means one hits one head less often when using the open rear hatch..ouch).

Before you mount the rack, give the roof a super coating of wax as the L300 roof top paint clear coat likes to peel off with time.

MBi

[sooperAndy]

thanks for the awesome advice.. I guess if i was positioning the legs over the support pillars i would have 1 set of legs at back, 1 between windows, 1 at the front of the rear windows, and one at the front by the A pillars (long roof rack).

I was aware of the Delica roof coating/rusting issue - my roof appears to have been sprayed with rockguard (cheap rubber-chunk paint) and there is a couple spots where the paint is showing through, and it looks in a little rusty-ish. I was thinking of removing the rock guard, then cleaning up all the rust, and then coating the whole top with Monstaliner. I don't know if anyone here has used Monstaliner (it's a type of roll-on bedliner), or used on their roof specifically, but i think it would take care of the roof issue (providing the prep was done properly) as well as protecting my roof from future damage caused by hauling "crap" on my roof (straps slipping off, material banging beside racks, etc etc.). sound good??

[yojimbo]

If its rusting, and a crystalite, it's rusting from the inside.

[sooperAndy]

There is a spot where the roof has been (horribly) patched by the sun roof. Mebbe I should search "roof repair" and figure how to properly patch the roof, then build roof racks. Should the seals around the crystallite windows be replaced? I wonder.... Mebbe I should search for a different topic.

[yojimbo]

Have a good search, its not the seals around the windows, its the glue that sticks the framework to the roof panel, lots of info about it, but I never did it, as I have the highly sought after solid high roof.

[nxski]

That sounds like a quick and dirty repair for the rusted cl roof. Pull the interior out, sand down the exterior, rust proof prime and rust proof paint the interior after all rust is removed, bondo the holes and sand again on the outside, rust proof prime then paint on rhino liner or equivalent.

That's how I did it at least and I posted a thread with step-by-step instructions (I can't find it on my phone).