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Nice Rack!
May. 2nd, 2004 09:28 pmSo, anyway, after 4 years of chinese water torture every time it rains or I go through a car wash, I took the Thule aerofeet off my Saturn, and dropped 183 bucks on a PerryCraft Winmaster factory style roof rack. I selected this model of rack because it is similar to the rack on the Chevy Blazer I borrowed from my neighbor in 2000, for which I bought a Thule fit kit so I could use my Thule load bars on his rack. I figured, since I had them on hand I might as well get something they'll work with.
So, the racks arrived Friday, and I installed them Saturday. The installation was real straightforward. However, the engineers at PerryCraft, in their infinite wisdom designed the thing for a metal roof; the roof on the Saturn is fiberglass. (Polymer fenders and doors fiberglass roof=outstanding weight/power ratio.) The problem is that the sheet metal screws supplied, if they were overtorqued even and ounce would (and did) chew the fiberglass right up. The result was a rack system that I did not feel I could trust with a pair of canoes traveling at 70 miles per hour through northern Minnesota.
If I were a body shop wizard, the logical thing to do would have been to pull the head liner, and use a nut-and-bolt solution through a metal backplate. But I am not a body-shop wizard, and there is nothing I find more daunting than interior trim. It NEVER goes back together right, it seems. So, to achieve the same effect, it occurred to me that I could use mollies with machine screws. This worked well in 6 out of eight pilot holes, but the remaining two were right over the rear roll-bar, and the mollies wouldn't sink in far enough to have room to expand, because the hit the roll bar about halfway in. I ended up using plug-anchors with the sheet metal screws on those two, but the end result is a LOT more stable than what I had with the manufacturers engineering.
If I were going to install those racks on another Saturn, I'd take more pains to avoid conflicting with the roll cage, and use mollies all around. This journey of discovery has left my body every bit as racked as my car, and I am left with a lot less respect for Perrycraft's engineers.
But I have racks again, and can carry canoes again, and I don't get dripped on at the car wash anymore.
So, the racks arrived Friday, and I installed them Saturday. The installation was real straightforward. However, the engineers at PerryCraft, in their infinite wisdom designed the thing for a metal roof; the roof on the Saturn is fiberglass. (Polymer fenders and doors fiberglass roof=outstanding weight/power ratio.) The problem is that the sheet metal screws supplied, if they were overtorqued even and ounce would (and did) chew the fiberglass right up. The result was a rack system that I did not feel I could trust with a pair of canoes traveling at 70 miles per hour through northern Minnesota.
If I were a body shop wizard, the logical thing to do would have been to pull the head liner, and use a nut-and-bolt solution through a metal backplate. But I am not a body-shop wizard, and there is nothing I find more daunting than interior trim. It NEVER goes back together right, it seems. So, to achieve the same effect, it occurred to me that I could use mollies with machine screws. This worked well in 6 out of eight pilot holes, but the remaining two were right over the rear roll-bar, and the mollies wouldn't sink in far enough to have room to expand, because the hit the roll bar about halfway in. I ended up using plug-anchors with the sheet metal screws on those two, but the end result is a LOT more stable than what I had with the manufacturers engineering.
If I were going to install those racks on another Saturn, I'd take more pains to avoid conflicting with the roll cage, and use mollies all around. This journey of discovery has left my body every bit as racked as my car, and I am left with a lot less respect for Perrycraft's engineers.
But I have racks again, and can carry canoes again, and I don't get dripped on at the car wash anymore.
