After noticing some weak areas on my roof rack I made for my RTT, it was evident that either I add more metal and make it heavier, or go with a rack that was initially meant for the purpose. The rack also was mainly meant for the RTT and nothing else, remove it and the rack would not support anything, unless I added more structure and weight. Also, removing the RTT required removing the roof rack with the tent still mounted. Sure with 2-3 strong people that wouldn’t be the case, but since I’m basically a one man operation, that doesn’t work out to well.
So I picked up an ARB Touring rack. Very nice rack, too. Meant for mounting a RTT, plus adding capablailites for more in the front with it’s “safari” style basket. Install was easy and straight forward. Also transeferred my ARB awning to the new rack, everything went together like it was made for it. The rack can be adjusted for height as most can. Supports my weight walking around on it very easily. I did notice some incresed wind noise with the rack placed more in the forward position on the cruiser. When placed more rearwards the wind noise discipated some. The rack also came with RTT mounting clamps for the cross bars. The RTT now can be installed and removed myself by walking it up the tail gate and sliding it onto the back of the rack, something my last rack could not handle weight wise.
A couple days go by and I start thinking about cutting the basket portion off to make a low profile flat rack. I don’t really need the basket since the RTT is the only thing going up there, and if I did put other things up top, the basket alone isn’t going to hold everything in place, I would still tie things down. The decreased profile means less wind resistance. The reason that made me plug in the sawzall was that the cruiser just fits into my gargae with the rear flat portion of the rack. Que the sawzall montage sequence!
Ended up rough cutting with the sawzall as close as possible and then grinding off the rest. Once primed it was ready for paint. I tried to get a good color match for the powder coating grey they used, but unfortunately no luck. I did find a charcoal grey that comes pretty close, close enough for me. Reinstalled the rack and very happy with the modification, a version I think ARB should offer in their arsenal.
