Murph70

I built myself a roof rack - the rack is great, but I'm not happy with how I have it attached to my jeep. Right now I have it on a thule rack that attaches to my gutters. It seems that when I really flex my Jeep it puts alot of strain on the gutters. I've had to reweld the gutters after cracking them away from the roof. In truth, it could be that I've put way too much weight on the rack (2 elk at a time or a ton of camping and hunting gear) but I'm still not happy with the setup. I have a few design ideas on how to build my own setup including putting the rack on a tubular exoskeleton that I would build... I guess what I was reeaaalllly hoping for was a brilliant, bombproof design idea from one of you fabrication gurus
Any ideas?

eking81

honestly your gutter is only going to hold a couple hundred pounds spread over the entire roof its not enough to carry 2 elk lol you over loaded it for sure your need to build some kind of exo cage to hold it up use the search feature in the top toll bar and search "exo cage"

CPLSeraphim

Murph- I just want to let you know this is not the right place to post this question. This belongs in Advanced Tech.

Other than that, go with the other posters advice. Gutters are about all you can do.

Murph70

Oh, believe me, i knew that the 2 elk were a little much as I was wheeling back out to a civilized road. I have thought about building a cage, which would clearly solve my problem, but I haven't decided to pull the trigger on that project yet. It seems that there must be a good way to attach the rack without it tho. I long ago removed the original roof rack rails that came with the jeep, but I'm thinking that there must be a way to use those rails in conjunction with a gutter mounting system to make the whole thing stronger. Just thought that someone may have crossed this bridge before me...

Murph70

sorry about that - I was looking for a design idea

CPLSeraphim

No problem. Just letting you know because it has been a big problem, and the people upstairs have thread about reading before posting that, well, without trying to sound like a dick, tell you that. Ask a mod to move it for you, and try not to do it again. lol.

Good luck, but yeah, that is a lot of weight to have on a roofrack. lol.

DirtRoadXJ

lay it on the roof and have the weight evenly distributed with enough cross bars.

EVILXJ

trying to design something you are going to fabricate should be in fabrication, that just makes common sence rather then throwing a topic like this into cherokee chat where there are less people interested in fabricating

with that said, i mounted my emt rack to my stock rack locations and id say it would hold all u want and more

Crusty Beakers

Do you happen to have any good pictures that show how you attached directly to your stock rack locations? I'm considering a rack build and I'd like to attach it as low as possible and avoid using the gutters.

caged

try using more gutter mounts, like 3 or 4 down each side.

Crunsch

I have seen most gutter mounts only cover a couple inches at most at the gutter. Fabricate a mount design that covers a couple feet maybe. Something that distributes weight in more area than only the mentioned couple of inches that the mounts widely sold do.

I figure the difference between "more mounts", which may be comparable, is that the rack design would have to be a bit different from the git go as to distribute the weight evenly on more of the gutter. rough idea pic below

caged

i was thinking spread them out every 6 inches or so along the rack.

Murph70

Ok, I'll bite - even though I was told that this isn't the proper place for this...
I put my rack on the thule rack temporarily untill I could figure out how i want to build something from scratch as a mounting system.
With that said, here are the issues I want to overcome:
I'm trying to puzzle out a design that will "lock" the system to the gutter so it won't move - not lock as in lock and key, but lock as in grip it tightly enough so the rack won't slide. I have seen production methods such as the one on the thule rack and i think (hope) I can do better...
I know the gutters are plenty strong, cause as I said before, i have waaaaay overloaded my current rack. My design will include at least 4 legs that will attach to the gutter, i just can't come up with a bomb proof method of holding onto the gutter.
And in my defense, i plan to build this all from scratch using the raw steel, grinder, plasma cutter, welder route...

Crunsch

I have done a roof/gutter rack and I know its only temporary but its nice. no pics yet.
Dont know if youve got your new rack but my next one will be 2x2 tube that spans from front custom bumper to rear custom bumper along both sides with lighter weight lateral bars, from side to side, every (x = so much distance) . Im collecting materials for the tire rack that will attach to the new custom rear bumper and the new "roof rack" that wont even touch the roof. All this is in planning so I dont know yet if the verticals from the front bumper would impede vision yet but an alternate design is for nerf bars that the rack would stem from.

You wanted ideas..

Crunsch

p.s. I keep my gutter mounts from sliding with small patches of 1/8" rubber membrane between the mount and the gutter.