So most likely will go a full roof rack soon. Is Shepra the only rack the is designed not use silicone? I notice all most of the non drill options use some type of silicone to keep water from getting into the roof.

Toyota 4Runner 5th Gen K9 Roof Rack Kit – Equipt Expedition Outfitters

I've been running the 2.2M/full length K9 Rack for 3 years with zero problems.

We've put it thru a ton of offroad miles while holding a 235lbs rooftop tent, hi-lift, maxtrax, couple camp chairs.

Wheeling in Moab with that much weight up high, rocking back and forth is going to test any roof rack with that kind of weight.

Nothing has budged or shifted at all.

Pros - the rack deck is a single piece, making it much stronger then racks you bolt together,
-All aluminum, so no rust.
-Modular design with T-slots, so you can bolt on a wide assortment of accessories, shovel, hi-lift, awning etc etc.
- Equipt usually has stock on hand, took 4-5 days from order to show up.
-NO Drill - there was no way in hell I was going to drill into my roof living in rainy Oregon. Silicone is not needed or part of the install. 1/28/2021 Updating my no silicone comment, I followed both Equipt & K9 instructions and there is no mention of sealing what so ever- I did end up with a leak. I contacted Equipt and they did reply, that K9 instructions arent great and that they had updated their website with a video showing using silicone. However that is weak. The video didnt exist when I bought my rack- and the printed instructions on their website were not updated. Love the rack but the instructions are for shit.
-Each side has 5 feet connecting to a solid rail, so weight is dispersed properly
-Low profile when empty, doesn't make too much noise.

Super happy with this rack, I'd definitely purchase another if I ever needed to.

Good luck in your search

Thanks for the info. I will check it out.

How it the wind noise?

I still have the stock rack/bars and don't use it much because it's almost useless to strap things to. I keep thinking about flat cross bars, but the full length platform or rack would be extremely useful. The thing that concerns me is the wind noise.

what do you mean "not use silicone"?

All racks you will need to seal the factory mounting locations.

Victory 4x4 is a full-length rack and no-drill option for the front where the footpads sit in the rain channel. seen it in person, very nice fitment

Sherpa utilizes rubber mounts instead of the traditional silicone globbing approach.

That's an interesting take. I had the K9 rack and developed a small leak into the cab. Called Equipt and they told me to add some silicone in the holes. If you watch their install video (which they used my 4R to film the install BTW) they added silicone around the holes and spacers. So Paul certainly recommends silicone.

YouTube

The K9 mounts like many of the other racks out there use aluminum spacers and a rail over the top. Consider yourself lucky if you haven't developed any leaks but you just might want to check that it doesn't look like this underneath...

Destroyed Factory Roof Mounting Locations

You may consider revising the title of this thread to include "no silicone", you'll get more specific responses.

Interesting the provided instructions do not list silicone as part of the install. Yet Paul's video clearly shows him using silicone to seal it, which makes sense. It's been 3 years so perhaps I did use silicone, but I sure don't recall doing so.


With nothing on the rack it does make some noise but not excessive. When I added my RTT I used some left over parts from the hi-lift mount to make a fairing using my maxtrax stuffed into a Blue Ridge bag. Which worked out extremely well. Solved the issue of wanting a fairing and a place to hold the maxtrax, plus reducing the noise from the RTT

Instead of silicone, look into butyl rubber. It does't harden or cure like silicone and is WAY easier to remove if you every want to touch areas up. Lasts way longer than silicone.

This person had a lot of good suggestions:
EcoTechne Roof Rack Installation (5th Gen)

If you look at greenland offroad's mount, it can be made water-tight with butyl rubber:
4Runner Aluminum Roof Rack System — GREENLANE OFF-ROAD

Same as RA motorsports (local to me in Canada) - this is the one I went with. I included a pic of their rack mount (3D printed plastic with a hard rubber + neoprene gasket)
03-09 4Runner Modular Roof Rack | Element By RA Motorsports


There are pictures of the mounts the rack mounts on to. So the key is go get one you can easily make water-resistant.

I also included a pic of the prinsu rack -that one suuuuuuuuuuuucks for trying to keep moisture out. You have to use a lot of something everywhere to keep water out.

I recently removed and sold my prinsu rack -the mounts sucked as they embedded into the paint and when you remove it, it removes paint which exposes bare metal. So I had to clean up all the mount points (very annoying given the small space you have to work with), etch prime, paint, and then clear coat. The prinsu mounts are round aluminum cylinders. The design of them cup water into the mount and concentrate pressure into the contact point on your roof.

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Check out the posts here between myself and mynameistory. Same guy that made the ecotechne rack install guide. Wealth of info in that thread -he's the reason that motivated me to sell the prinsu and by the one from a local shop (RA motorsports).

The Greenlane Offroad is easy to make waterproof as well -just lay a solid bead of butyl rubber under the block mount.

What did you do to/in your 5th Gen today?!

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

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I found this same video.

Yep that video is actually my rig Paul installed it on. Previously to the K9 rack I had a Prinsu rack. I lived in Utah at the time and while it doesn't rain much there it sure snows a lot. I never had any problems with water penetration with snow. Then it rained really hard one day and I felt water running down my seat belt. I called Paul and he recommended adding more silicone to the bolt holes.

I then moved to Alabama where when it rains it pours and it rains pretty much all the time year round. Honestly it scared the shit out of me every time it rained but it never leaked again. I still never trusted it and since sold the rack and went back to the OEM rack. Also cleaned up around the mounting holes a bit so that there wasn't so much old residue there.

I'm still looking for a new rack but yeah adding globs of silicone doesn't do it for me. Probably will get the Sherpa rack or maybe get that mounting foot you posted. Hopefully RA can sell the foot pads separately.

good idea. thanks