New Prinsu Rack No-Drill Option
- Thread starter hawaiianryan
- Start date
chrissurfr
New member
the baja ladder will work with it for sure
2flyfishin
New member
Been wondering for those who have these 7/8 racks, how are you guys liking them? Would you change to a full length or 3/4 if you had the chance? Is the extra foot worth the extra money over the 3/4? Any pro's or cons that you have with them? etc. Just looking for some owner input before I pull the trigger and thanks in advance.
mrblah
Senior Member
I like my 7/8th rack a lot. It is easy to install, lightweight, low profile, and easy to bolt things to it (just use 1/4 carriage bolts from home depot, and 1/4 eyelet nuts from amazon.).
I kind of regret not getting the full length rack, mainly because after hanging out at the fastener aisle at home depot, its really easy to fab a no drill solution for the full length, and I have been thinking about a RTT in the future, and the full length is probably more versatile if you were going the RTT route. Honestly, this is only a fleeting moment, because I do love my 7/8 rack. There is only 1 con about it, and it has to do with light bars.
If you have to mount a light bar, your light bar is going to sit really high above the fairing, or you will have to take off the fairing all together. Also, running the wires for the lightbar won't be as "clean" as a full size rack would. If I were to run a lightbar, I'd probably run it without the fairing so the rack can be as low of a profile as it can. I haven't figured out how to run the wires cleanly.
The 3/4 was never on my radar, if I wanted that size, I'd probably modify my OEM rack to accept a platform, and use U bolts to bolt it to the OEM side rails, and save a bunch of money.
One con of PRINSU racks in general: They use rectangular side rails, which makes it difficult to find off the rack solutions to bolt things to the side rails themselves (like awnings, or high lift jacks or maxtrax) off the side of the truck without you buying brackets/kits from other manufactures, and then having to throw all the mounting fasteners out, and running to home depot and replace it all with 1/4 fasteners, and bolts. I have now bags and bags of fasteners.....lol.......its annoying but its something you should know if you like prinsu's design... You give up some function for form/aesthetics.
Also, I'd buy it powdercoated from Prinsu. I bought mine bare, and it was a bear to rattle can all those pieces and it still looked like crap, and it costed just as much or more to get it powdercoated locally. Some people complain about prinsu's powdercoating, but trust me man, its not any better to do it yourself/locally.
I kind of regret not getting the full length rack, mainly because after hanging out at the fastener aisle at home depot, its really easy to fab a no drill solution for the full length, and I have been thinking about a RTT in the future, and the full length is probably more versatile if you were going the RTT route. Honestly, this is only a fleeting moment, because I do love my 7/8 rack. There is only 1 con about it, and it has to do with light bars.
If you have to mount a light bar, your light bar is going to sit really high above the fairing, or you will have to take off the fairing all together. Also, running the wires for the lightbar won't be as "clean" as a full size rack would. If I were to run a lightbar, I'd probably run it without the fairing so the rack can be as low of a profile as it can. I haven't figured out how to run the wires cleanly.
The 3/4 was never on my radar, if I wanted that size, I'd probably modify my OEM rack to accept a platform, and use U bolts to bolt it to the OEM side rails, and save a bunch of money.
One con of PRINSU racks in general: They use rectangular side rails, which makes it difficult to find off the rack solutions to bolt things to the side rails themselves (like awnings, or high lift jacks or maxtrax) off the side of the truck without you buying brackets/kits from other manufactures, and then having to throw all the mounting fasteners out, and running to home depot and replace it all with 1/4 fasteners, and bolts. I have now bags and bags of fasteners.....lol.......its annoying but its something you should know if you like prinsu's design... You give up some function for form/aesthetics.
Also, I'd buy it powdercoated from Prinsu. I bought mine bare, and it was a bear to rattle can all those pieces and it still looked like crap, and it costed just as much or more to get it powdercoated locally. Some people complain about prinsu's powdercoating, but trust me man, its not any better to do it yourself/locally.
Yes, my gobi ladder ordered last month took 6 weeks - using with prinsu
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2flyfishin
New member
Thanks for the input. Luckily, I have no plans for a rtt but was looking for something that had a little more room than my Thule roof basket that I already had from my previous vehicles, mount an arb awning I just ordered and a few pieces of recovery gear that I use only when I go out on trips but I'm not quite sure I want a full length rack. I also have a titan rod vault to put up there and was hoping it would be wider than the stock rails.
mrblah
Senior Member
i think you will like it. I was able to mount my arb awning to it using some universal brackets from I want to say Rhino. I'm sure you will able to fit whatever you want up there, it just might take some ingenuity on your part and trips to home depot...lol.
T4 Leaf
New member
Thanks Krom....that's not too bad at all
chrissurfr
New member
I hope to finally have mine back from powdercoating to match cement grey this week. Will post pics as soon as its installed.
2flyfishin
New member
I love the look of Prinsu 7/8 roof rack. any noise issue at high speed?
2flyfishin
New member
I haven't noticed any noise at all except the couple times when I was driving in 30 plus mph winds which I can't really attribute to the rack. I would take this with a little caution though because my hearing at some tones actually sucks so if wind noise falls within certain tones I wouldn't hear it anyways but my wife hasn't said anything about hearing anything either. If you trust the fuel mileage gauge, I only dropped .1 mpg's in the time it's been mounted which is great. I do wish the mounting spacers were designed a little different. I would like to see them make a one piece spacer that would fill the space between the rubber stripping where the stock rails were on the roof and maybe a rubber grommet for underneath it to help weather proof it along with the silicone. I would think a one piece design would help spread the weight of a loaded up rack over a larger surface area at the mounting points as well as look much nicer (the supplied spacers look kind of chintzy to me albeit they work ). I think the spacers should also be powder coated to match the side rails of the rack as well giving it a much more finished look.
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swim.bike.run
New member
Aside from wind noise I added a fender washer to each spacer as I notice one spacer shifter and was sitting at an angle and not flush with the rack feet. The fender washer leveled everything out.
2flyfishin
New member
You have the 3/4 rack if I remember correctly from another thread. I would think that yours would have less wind noise than mine. The only noise I get constantly that I really notice is the rattling of the carriage bolts I left in the channel for my awning mounts. I need to pull them out of there because you can’t tighten them up enough to keep them from rattling. I too had some spacers that didn’t sit quite flush with the rack base but they were close enough not for me to worry about it.
gpellis871
New member
I really like the look of the 3/4 with no drill but some of the comments here about quality of work are a bit concerning.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
2flyfishin
New member
Right after I ordered my rack, people started posting about some of their issues about quality control and shipping times. From my experience, mine was delivered 6 weeks after I ordered it, which is what I was told and all parts were there, powder coating was good and no cracks. Others did seem to have some problems. There are a lot of really nice racks out there from multiple companies so make sure you really shop thoroughly.
swim.bike.run
New member
I will echo [MENTION=150679]2flyfishin[/MENTION].
I was told 6 weeks and it arrived in 4. No issues with powder coating or parts. Every question I asked was answered in a timely manner. I was unhappy about a particular spacer size even though the instructions stated fender washers may be used. CBI is shipping out a taller set, no questions asked. More than pleased with the product and service and would gladly re-order from them.
4Running303
New member
Yes, i had a 3/4 and was able to mount Maxtrax both longitudinally and horizontally across the rack. I used a home-made mount made of four 3"-long carriage bolts, washers, and wing-nuts.
Thank you. I'm deciding between 3/4 Prinsu and Rago modular rail support system. I want something to hold my recovery gear and to be able to stand on top for my photography needs.
