Finally A Roof Track For The Surf!

[goodcat]

Right after about 2 days of searching online ive stumbled accross this!
its the latest eddition from Thule and its for.....well the surf basically! and other SUV's and cars etc etc. (like they matter )
its a "permanent" fitting to the roof of your surf in the shape of a "track". this "track" is to immitate a factory track like most veichles have.
so now our surfs can have a factory track on the roof as a base for various roof rack systems!!
when you click on the link you will see just below the list of details a link to a short descriptive video in a pink box.

here is the link. http://www.rackattack.com/product-pa...flare-nuts.asp

here is another link to another site. please note that this link is for illustrative purposes only. it is for the the 60" version which is ONLY for FIBERGLASS roofs!! this is just so you can see some pictures of what it looks like fitted.
the version required for the surf comes in 54" and i think there was a 48" rack. these are ONLY for METAL and ALUMINIUM surfaces. they can both be easily cut down in size and capped off.
NB: you can use the 60" for the surf but you would have to drop the roof liner down in order to bolt it on but on the plus side if you only wanted to run your rail from the back of the roof and upto the sunroof then this would be a perfect fit.... my needs are different as i will be fixing an additional van platform rack ontop of the rails (which are going to be fixed into the Track) so i can load full 8x4ft material sheets etc etc.
the 54" and 48" tracks both come with "flare nuts" specially designed to screw into sheet metal. perfect for our roofs and this means that we dont have to drop the roof liner inside the truck!!

http://www.backcountryracks.com/thul...acks-tb60.html

incase you were wondering, (as previously said) its approximately 60" from the back of the surf to the sunroof so the 54" would fit almost entirely along the whole of the roof upto the sunroof!
then (as what i will be doing) you can buy another set (the smaller one would be cheaper) and cut it down to fit the rest of the roof from where the other Track finishes and the roof stops towards the windscreen.
depending on how much flex you get with the "feet" and "fixing kit" you may have to pack up the end of the track where the roof starts to dip with additional washers in order to keep the last part level with the the rest. (i will let you know about this when i fit mine)

right now the bad news........This product from Thule is only available in the US! i have been searching for hours on end and have spoken to a supplier in the US and they said they cant ship to the UK and have no idea wheather or not its available over here.
so......ill be on the case to other suppliers in regards to shipping it over hear and will get back to you. if that fails then luckily i have a mate living out in Orlando Florida and i can get him to buy it for me and ship it over to me personally.
unless anybody else cares to find out who can ship this product over to us in the UK??????

well there you have it folks. finally a decent attractive solution for us to fit a various amount of rail systems to our surfs! you can also fit as many bars as you want untill you run out of space in the tracks to accomodate heavier loads!!
also Yakima products fit directly into the Thule Tracks. (see second link) a cheeper alternative. they also do their own Tracks aswell.

all parts needed are shown in the first link. see the boxes on the right.
the only parts i can source in the UK are the Bars. (halfords etc do them)

this system takes minutes to install and now no need for getting hot and bothered taking the roof liner down inside the truck etc etc.

i will post pics of mine once ive fitted it.

hope this is of help to you guys.

Jay.

[KERRSURF]

I reckon you could take the rails off of another car and do the same, what you need to fix it through roof skin is then just the tool, flare nut puller.

We use tools called rivnut guns to do the same thing when coachbuilding.

[BUSHWHACKER]

I reckon you could take the rails off of another car and do the same, what you need to fix it through roof skin is then just the tool, flare nut puller.

We use tools called rivnut guns to do the same thing when coachbuilding.

Yep, and there we are, back at the begining.
Or go find your nearest Unistrut stockist!
http://www.unistrut.co.uk/index.php?...300&M1=Support Systems&M2=Single and Double Channel

[goodcat]

I reckon you could take the rails off of another car and do the same, what you need to fix it through roof skin is then just the tool, flare nut puller.

We use tools called rivnut guns to do the same thing when coachbuilding.

yeah thanks for ####ing on my fire mate! lol

it wouldve been nice if somebody had mentioned this in all the dozens of posts ive read whilst searching roof racks on the forum!

anyway i think this looks way better than a rail. tracks are the new rails!

i think this would be stronger than a rail if they were both fixed using flare nuts as its a slimmer/flusher design.

[mousey]

Yep, and there we are, back at the begining.
Or go find your nearest Unistrut stockist!
http://www.unistrut.co.uk/index.php?...300&M1=Support Systems&M2=Single and Double Channel

The holy one hath returned lol

Been a while

[goodcat]

Yep, and there we are, back at the begining.
Or go find your nearest Unistrut stockist!
http://www.unistrut.co.uk/index.php?...300&M1=Support Systems&M2=Single and Double Channel

yeah that would work but would look sh!t.

[BUSHWHACKER]

yeah that would work but would look sh!t.

Phuq you then!

[jeff.fn02jwa]

Right after about 2 days of searching online ive stumbled accross this!
its the latest eddition from Thule and its for.....well the surf basically! and other SUV's and cars etc etc. (like they matter )
its a "permanent" fitting to the roof of your surf in the shape of a "track". this "track" is to immitate a factory track like most veichles have.
so now our surfs can have a factory track on the roof as a base for various roof rack systems!!
when you click on the link you will see just below the list of details a link to a short descriptive video in a pink box.

here is the link. http://www.rackattack.com/product-pa...flare-nuts.asp

here is another link to another site. please note that this link is for illustrative purposes only. it is for the the 60" version which is ONLY for FIBERGLASS roofs!! this is just so you can see some pictures of what it looks like fitted.
the version required for the surf comes in 54" and i think there was a 48" rack. these are ONLY for METAL and ALUMINIUM surfaces. they can both be easily cut down in size and capped off.
NB: you can use the 60" for the surf but you would have to drop the roof liner down in order to bolt it on but on the plus side if you only wanted to run your rail from the back of the roof and upto the sunroof then this would be a perfect fit.... my needs are different as i will be fixing an additional van platform rack ontop of the rails (which are going to be fixed into the Track) so i can load full 8x4ft material sheets etc etc.
the 54" and 48" tracks both come with "flare nuts" specially designed to screw into sheet metal. perfect for our roofs and this means that we dont have to drop the roof liner inside the truck!!

http://www.backcountryracks.com/thul...acks-tb60.html

incase you were wondering, (as previously said) its approximately 60" from the back of the surf to the sunroof so the 54" would fit almost entirely along the whole of the roof upto the sunroof!
then (as what i will be doing) you can buy another set (the smaller one would be cheaper) and cut it down to fit the rest of the roof from where the other Track finishes and the roof stops towards the windscreen.
depending on how much flex you get with the "feet" and "fixing kit" you may have to pack up the end of the track where the roof starts to dip with additional washers in order to keep the last part level with the the rest. (i will let you know about this when i fit mine)

right now the bad news........This product from Thule is only available in the US! i have been searching for hours on end and have spoken to a supplier in the US and they said they cant ship to the UK and have no idea wheather or not its available over here.
so......ill be on the case to other suppliers in regards to shipping it over hear and will get back to you. if that fails then luckily i have a mate living out in Orlando Florida and i can get him to buy it for me and ship it over to me personally.
unless anybody else cares to find out who can ship this product over to us in the UK??????

well there you have it folks. finally a decent attractive solution for us to fit a various amount of rail systems to our surfs! you can also fit as many bars as you want untill you run out of space in the tracks to accomodate heavier loads!!
also Yakima products fit directly into the Thule Tracks. (see second link) a cheeper alternative. they also do their own Tracks aswell.

all parts needed are shown in the first link. see the boxes on the right.
the only parts i can source in the UK are the Bars. (halfords etc do them)

this system takes minutes to install and now no need for getting hot and bothered taking the roof liner down inside the truck etc etc.

i will post pics of mine once ive fitted it.

hope this is of help to you guys.

Jay.

hay i can give you one i have one in my shed that i have not put on my surf and i think that you will save a lot as all i want is 35 quid for and it is still in the box with all the bits all will req is the roof spars to load the rack send my a pm if you are up for a deal with me i work a way from all week and will not log back in to the site till next sat think about it

[jeff.fn02jwa]

just read your first post in full and think after reading the post in full the one i have is just not long enough for what you want out of a roof rack have you ever thought over just getting a trailer or if you have got one y not just get a bigger one than the one you have better mpg with a trailer than a roof rack but not buy much what do you think then

[POPEYE]

I reckon you could take the rails off of another car and do the same, what you need to fix it through roof skin is then just the tool, flare nut puller.

We use tools called rivnut guns to do the same thing when coachbuilding.

aye, used rivnuts at caetanos, still have a load of em but not the tool, (air opp. plus my comp's not up to that sort of capacity), i used "bigheads" when i fitted the light bar, worked well,

(is'nt there enough info on here already re- rails etc?,) stop "pussying about goodcat and nip down the breakers,

[Paul1566]

Have you downloaded and read the installation instructions ?

It says not for off road us and do not install on vehicles with sunroofs.

Back to square one then..........

[yoshie]

FFS enough already, do as suggested get down the scrapy and bodge summit or as Vince has pointed out buy and fab. If you just want to buy a ready made solution get the wallet out.

'O' and as a step for hint. When someone offers a solution or suggestion your not keen on, a polite cheers mate is all thats required. this leaves the door open for you to seek their help or advice again.

[goodcat]

FFS enough already, do as suggested get down the scrapy and bodge summit or as Vince has pointed out buy and fab. If you just want to buy a ready made solution get the wallet out.

'O' and as a step for hint. When someone offers a solution or suggestion your not keen on, a polite cheers mate is all thats required. this leaves the door open for you to seek their help or advice again.

hello Yoshie. the whole point of all this was because i DONT want a bosh job. i DONT want rails either because i couldnt get some to fit the entire length of the surf perfectly like this system could. i DONT want to take the liner down and all the other bits and bobs because i no longer have a empty garage to work in. i only have evenings avaiable to do anything and i dont fancy doing it out on the road.
i wanted it to look factory fitted and i thought this system was perfect and as i was going for a platform van rack to bolt ontop of it, this system wouldve allowed me to go as big as i wanted unlike what the average surfer fits ontop of their roof.
also im not quite sure what or whom you were refering to when you said i should've said a polite cheers mate?? if you mean to Kerrsurf then you got the wrong end of the stick. i wasnt being rude to him. i was only joking with him. i thought the "lol" at the end made that clear?
i was gutted but also laughing my head off when he came up with that suggestion. i had spent hours searching and ages writing up my orignal post in the thought that i was going to be helping other fellow surfers out no end with this system as all the searches i did on the forum came up with a lot of people scratching their heads and being told they had to drop liner etc, drill and bolt some car rails to it.
dont forget that not everyone on this forum is mechanically minded or able to carry out such works. for me its a case of time and space which is why id rather spend the money.
like i said, i thought i was helping others by posting this....wasnt expecting to get slayed down and told that this had all been talked about before and trsut me it hasnt! i couldnt find one post where someone had suggested instead of droping the roof liner down, to use a rivetnut gun. thats a peice of pi$$ and that is what i would now recomend people instead of this. but for me thats still irrelevent becasue i wanted to go bigger.

but as Paul1655 has quite rightly pointed out that in the fitting instructions it says that its not to be used with sunroofs! so obviously i cant use this and i failed to spot this flaw.
however its still good for those who dont have sunroofs, or as Kerrsurf suggested just fix car rails with the same flare nut technique.

oh well i tried.
Jay.

[goodcat]

just read your first post in full and think after reading the post in full the one i have is just not long enough for what you want out of a roof rack have you ever thought over just getting a trailer or if you have got one y not just get a bigger one than the one you have better mpg with a trailer than a roof rack but not buy much what do you think then

ill pass thanks Jeff. cheers anyway.

[Apache]

Makes me feel all proud that I fitted mine (designed for Defender) in a way I designed, in the street, without a garage available, and by removing the headlining



And a gratuitous pic of what else I did while the headlining was out