roof rack progress

[evldave]

ok, so I've been working (regular work) too much to do anymore so far this week, but I got nothing going on this week and should finish all the welding.

Some rough comments:

The towel I got in south beach a few years ago. Nice boobies, it's a great garage accessory. My nekkid pixies picture of a girl with a drill I lost in a recent breakup (much better than the towel...the picture, not the girl).

The roof mounts will be 1" .065 round stock, 2-3/4" in height, welded to a 1-1/2"x3"x3/16" flat plate. The plates will mount to the rails via the same mechanism the little tiedown dohickies mount (a flat plate under the rails with a stainless bolt).

In the rear, the rack sits out back behind the rail, so I'll cut the round stock to match the front-back round stock and the rack will sit about 6-8" out over the rear roof mounting point.

The two center crossrails will mount on the roundbar.

The front crossrail is ~10-12" in front of the front plastic mounting bolt (torque bit). A 3/4 square stock (.065, same as the upper rails) will fit perfectly down in the hole. I've already made up a special tool to tighten that down and it will come up to the frontback roundstock and hold up the front portion of the roofrack.

The roof antenna (onstar?) sits right below the floor plate of the rack, which is why I went with that height of the rack.

There will be 4 supports on each side, 3 on the rails, 1 on the front bolt.

The rear tire will go up top, and I'll make up a bike mount for the stock rear tire mount.

The top rail is set up to exactly fit th 4xRac for the hi-lift mount, plus it nicely fits the PIAA 1500XT on the rear. The front will have separate mounts built in to hold lights.

The whole rack will be either line-x, rhino, or herculiner. My finish welds aren't really nice enough for powdercoat, plus I want to line-x the fenders (like Bebe) and that would be a good match.

Total dimensions are 4'1" x 8'1" - almost exactly the size of the roof. It may be a little too big, but I've done some fits and it seems to go nice with the lines of the vehicle. The roundbar/square stock seems to go well with the design of the vehicle, but you can only tell when it's all done.

Alec-I agree, the Gobi looks fantastic, but have some patience - when this is done, it will look nice + it will only be maybe $300 in parts & it will be exactly what I want, not what everyone else has. I bought my Hummer first for it's offroad capabilities, but also for it's uniqueness (otherwise I would have kept my XJ). If it doesn't look good, you can pick on me all you want, but I think/hope even you will be impressed when it's done.