I have slowly been adding parts/accessories to my 4Runner. I picked up the Prinsu Rack several months back along with the Road Shower from a group buy.
I loved the idea of being able to carry pressurized water along on our camping trips, beach trips, etc. Before purchasing the RTT I would simply install the Road Shower on the top of the roof rack using the mounts supplied with the Road Shower; simple and basic.
However, when I purchased the RTT I ran into a bit of a dilemma. The RTT would naturally take up most of the top of the roof rack which wouldn’t allow me to mount the Road Shower and the Tent together. So, I started brainstorming on ideas on how to make it work. I thought about turning it lengthwise across the roofline but for various reasons including my Roof Mounted Awning the sideways method wasn’t completely ideal let alone that the Road Shower extended beyond the roof line on both sides.
In the end I settled on the option of mounting the Road Shower along the side of the Prinsu Rack using the Prinsu awning brackets which allowed the RTT to fold open resting just above the Road Shower and just above the door line so all the doors open unimpeded. I wanted to come up with a design for a bracket that I could mount in conjunction with the Prinsu awning brackets that would 1) give an OEM look, 2) provide additional support, 3) allow for quick and easy mounting/removal of the Road Shower (now literally seconds) and 4) lock the road shower in place using a total of 4 bolts per mounting point. I took some inspiration from a Toyota Tundra I saw that had a similar mount that attached to the bed rack and came up with a bracket that hugs the contours of the road shower and fits perfectly along the side of the roof line and above the doors.
I’m pretty pleased with the end result.
As many of you know having a few custom parts made is never a cheap venture, so to bring down the cost a bit I had the manufacturer make 5 sets of them for me. This is probably a super long shot… but if there are any of you who are in a similar situation and own both the Prinsu Rack and the Road Shower and would be interested in a set of brackets let me know. I’m not looking to make money off this, but it would be nice to recoup a little of my costs and provide a good solution to a handful of you. The brackets cost me $30 per piece to have cut, bent, and powder coated… so for a set of 2 it cost me $60. Let me know if anyone would be interested in a set.