Titan Roof Rack ?

I looked into this extensively and neither Yakima or Thule make anything for the Titan. If you want a "removable" look, just buy the Yakima Tracks in their 60" length. You'll still have to bolt them down to the roof, but instead of a permanent roof rack, you have the Yakima track up there that looks factory. They only stand about 1/4" up from the roof and would look and work great for a light to medium duty application.

Once you have the track, you can mount darn near anything up there. Your local REI has all the accessories for you to look at, though they typically have to order the tracks.

I needed a permanent, heavy duty setup to carry a lot of weight, so I went with the bolt down application from 4X4Parts.com

Regards,

John

i had a yak rack on my first car - a 1990 buick skylark. i've still got all the components and would only need to get new towers and maybe a wider fairing. i never trimmed the bars down because i liked the fact that i could fit four bikes on it when necessary.

you are right about yakima stuff - the quality is first class. do you know if the tracks will fit directly into the rain grooves on the roof, or are they too wide? i haven't yet measured the width of the grooves or scoped out the width of the tracks. if i had a cap, the tracks would be a no-brainer. and i am leaning heavily toward the tracks on the roof of the cab. and let's face it, the yak racks with the fairings just look tight.

i think i remember reading about taking care with the side curtain airbags - it might have been on your install post john - but i won't have that problem as i don't have the tip-top LE with the rear side-curtain airbags. would there be any other landmines waiting for me if i were to drill into my roof?

Red Rider, here's a few pics. You can't see the rock sliders really all that well. Give me a minute and I'll post a link to the thread where I posted close up pics of the sliders.

Okay, you can look here for that thread.

http://www.titantalk.com/forums/tit...have-rock-sliders.html?highlight=rock+sliders

Regards,

John

tbizzle, I talked to Yakima when I was researching it and they told me exactly the same thing they told you. If you open up the detailed service manual, you'll see the areas where the roof is supported side to side with a cross member. I still don't recommend drilling there as this area is still not near as strong as where I recommended. Crawl up there and rap on it with your knuckles and you'll see what I mean.

Plus nuts are one way of attaching the rack. Neoprene well nuts are a better choice, stronger, and by design, water tight. This is what the ORU rack I have uses. You can buy well nuts online, or at your local auto parts store. Here in SoCal, Lowes also carries them. You insert a bolt down into to middle of them and when it tightens up, it crunches the neoporene up into the hole, sealing it up and making it darn near impossible for it to tear free. Pretty slick if you ask me.

Neither of these require you to drill down to where your roof liner is as they don't require a bolt or anything to attach from inside the truck. If you drill where I recommend, you're not even above the roof liner. You're above the top of the door.

I don't think there's a wrong way to do this, particularly given how much research you seem to be doing. I'm sure it will come out just fine. I needed the structural strength of the outside area of the truck due to the weight I sometimes carry up there. For a light to medium duty application, you could probably get by with drilling into the top of the roof. Just make sure you hit those cross members, otherwise there's no strength up there and the weight of your rack may push in the roof of the truck.

Regards,

John