Parking Garages

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blkexp98

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I am thinking about adding a roof basket to my 4runner and wanted to do a little research. We don't have many parking garages around here but that's about the lowest area i can think of. So would those of you who do have some around or just know of some heights give me as many examples as possible. I just want to be sure if i do get one and put stuff up there ill be able to get into one and get the various items back off while inside.

Thanks for any help and if you know of any other possible problem areas feel free to add them.

Major
 
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blkexp98 said:
I am thinking about adding a roof basket to my 4runner and wanted to do a little research. We don't have many parking garages around here but that's about the lowest area i can think of. So would those of you who do have some around or just know of some heights give me as many examples as possible. I just want to be sure if i do get one and put stuff up there ill be able to get into one and get the various items back off while inside.

Thanks for any help and if you know of any other possible problem areas feel free to add them.

Major
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with a 2.5" lift and a Yakima loadwarrior on top of the stock roof racks, i was just able to fit into a 7' garage,

with close to a 6" lift in the back and 4-4.5 up front and a tire ontop I can fit into the 8' parking garage at DIA. edit: can fit...
 
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most are 7 feet even

Consider starting with just a home based garage as a measuring point.

Typical entrance clearance is 7 feet. So a lot of commercial parking garages follow that lead. Lowest I have seen here was 6 foot 8.

I found a way to do an almost flush mount for my roof basket. If you attempt to put a basket on top of the factory cross bars of the roof rack-you will be pushing your clearance to the barest of minimums.

Ryani over on Yota Tech showed me how to use electrical channel-UNISTRUT is a brand name. Fastening that straight to the roof "rails" and eliminating the cross bars completely allows my body and suspension lifted 3rd gen to fit everywhere I need it.

Ryani mounted his UNISTRUT on it's side. I mounted mine horizontally or flatter.

In any case it's very smart of you to be considering all of this before a rack purchase. Well done.
 
Thanks for the info. Ive always been one to research a good bit before i do something. This was just one of the issues i thought of for a roof basket.

The Unistrut is a great idea. Im very familiar with that and already own some including the clips it uses. I assume you used the short version over the other heights. We used some stainless on a job not too long ago. Too bad there wernt a couple sticks of that left. How did you pad it to keep it from rubbing the paint off your roof? I would think that unless you had a rubber gasket (that may still wear the paint) it would be rough on the roof. All in all its a great idea though.
 
glad to help spread the idea

No pad used for mine-it's fastened straight to the roof rails that run down the roof. 2 Metric bolts used to hold down each of 4 pieces of Unistrut.

It's entirely possible your 4th gen rail system is slightly different than my 3rd gens, but the concept/idea should be similar.

I believe I have shots over on my Facebook link (no membership to Facebook necessary to view)

Yes I am using the smaller strut size-I believe it is a common size-1 and 13/16ths (?) size of strut and I used 1 "spring nut" within the channel of each piece to affix the basket to the strut.

My cheapo roof basket (Costco closeout Coleman unit) was slightly wider than the rails-so on one side I had to get a bit creative with a flexible clamp, rather than a direct bolt down as I did on the other side.

Great idea on the stainless steel strut.
 
I think it really depends on where you're located. Here in seattle, the average in downtown seattle are 6'7". the building across the street from my office building is at 6'. In Cali (SF bay and LA) i noticed that the garages are much higher.

I can fit into a 6'7" garage with 3" lift, 285's and a low profile rack and small lights on top.
 
My parking garage (that I'm at all by 1 day a week) is 7'. If I stick my hand out of my sunroof it will almost touch one of the yellow markers. I wanted to do some lights and possibly a basket but it will have to wait til May for me.
 
For some reason i had it pictured with you running the unistrut lengthwise down the roof. So you didn't replace those rails but mounted to them going across it sounds.

I just got back from a weekend at the beach and my wife and i took a quick look at the various garages there. It seems 11' was the tallest and 6' 3" was the lowest that was marked. Id say somewhere between 6 1/2' to 7' was the norm for the shorter ones. My 4runner looks like the actual roof is around 5'8" tall not counting the current rack. Ill have to think about what i going to do for my next set of tires too since i may step up in size slightly.

From what i've seen locally i may have 6" to play with and from how its sounds from all your responses so far there is no real standard. That 6' one kind of makes you wonder what they were thinking. At 6' MYSELF i could barely walk in there IF i ducked under the supports. :) That's ridiculous. I think as long as i keep everything under about 6 1/2' tall i should be ok. Whenever i book a hotel i guess i should just ask if parking is in a garage and how tall it is if so.
 
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