Watched the install video and it scares the bejesus out of me re: rust.
My concerns:
1) In the attached screenshot, where the OEM mount sits, when it was originally installed, it pushes the sealant that was protecting bare metal. When you remove the OEM rack, it exposes this bare metal (circled in red). So, you have to find a way to protect that bare metal again -that's what I treated with etch primer, paint, and clear (I cleaned the area up first).
2) As mentioned, silicone isn't the best product and needs to be touched up every 2-3 years. Whatever you can get off comes off easy, but whatever is leftover is a PITA to remove.
2) The washers that he uses on top of the spacers aren't sealed so water (even little drips) can get between the waters.
3) The instruction video doesn't tell you to use blue loctite to seal the threads -you really should.
4) The way the mounts sit on top of the washers (that are sitting on top of the spacers), there's no sealant between the washers and the mount. It's just metal on metal. So water will trickle down the mount, collect around the washers, and find their way in around the bolt/mount holes, and pool into the spacers. Those aluminum spacers will now act as a cup with no way for water to escape. So, I hope you added enough silicone or whatever product into the spacer cavity to completely seal it off from moisture (pushing the bolt in through the washers and bolting it up won't make it water-tight).
5) To bolt the mount down, they have a rubber washer and then a round-head nut. I'd personally would have liked to see a metal washer between the nut head and rubber washer.
6) Rubber washers deteriorate and dry out really fast so make really bad gaskets (according to mynameistory, use silicone washers)
7) When you bolt down the first mount on top of the washers and spacers, that will squeeze every bit of silicone out from underneath the spacers. Then you have hard aluminum sitting on top of your paint -that's what rook the paint off of my mount points. The only way to avoid this is by not fastening the bolt down very hard and/or by not putting very much weight on your rack.
I could go on for a few more points, but those are the weak points I see off the top of my head. I'm not shitting on your rack -just hope you can see the weak points and fix them before they get bad.
The motivation behind my fear or rust all spawned from when I restored a 1995 4runner. Rusted panels and rocker panels were cut out, welded back in, paint, etc.. So, rust was a large part of my life for those 3 years lol
This thread re-hashed all of my fears lol
Destroyed Factory Roof Mounting Locations
