Roof Rack That Mounts to Factory Rails

Before I bit the bullet and went with the PRINSU 3/4 rack. the set up I was looking at was the Rola Roof Rack (found on Ebay for less than $150) and then instead of mounting to the cross bar, I was going to cut mounts using a angle bar from home depot and u bolts.

The rola is the only rack I found that has bars running down the sides that could be used to mount. If you are not into making your own mounts, there is a company that sells mounts for the rola. Cannot remember the name of the company but they are for the 4th gen. they are called low profile mounts and they can be used on a 5th gen, may need to add a small spacer to make sure it does not touch the roof though.

Mike
 
Before I bit the bullet and went with the PRINSU 3/4 rack. the set up I was looking at was the Rola Roof Rack (found on Ebay for less than $150) and then instead of mounting to the cross bar, I was going to cut mounts using a angle bar from home depot and u bolts.

The rola is the only rack I found that has bars running down the sides that could be used to mount. If you are not into making your own mounts, there is a company that sells mounts for the rola. Cannot remember the name of the company but they are for the 4th gen. they are called low profile mounts and they can be used on a 5th gen, may need to add a small spacer to make sure it does not touch the roof though.

Mike
Looks like this has to mount to cross bars.

Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk
 
I just had a Thule Canyon rack delivered yesterday. And I was planning on mounting it using the factory cross bars. I have a sun roof and shark fin antenna and the basket should work fine.

There is also a new Thule Trail XT roof basket (medium). This is pretty expensive but I think it would've worked behind the sun roof and in front of the satellite antenna (it's a little longer).
https://www.rei.com/product/103194/thule-trail-xt-cargo-basket-medium
 
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Here are a couple pics of my Rocky-Road rack I did however slightly modify it for my purposes.

20160331151227-31e30828-me.jpg


20160331151323-3745cfb0-me.jpg


I had the side bars Powder Coated Black.

20160714152846-5166167b-me.jpg
 
I just had a Thule Canyon rack delivered yesterday. And I was planning on mounting it using the factory cross bars. I have a sun roof and shark fin antenna and the basket should work fine.

There is also a new Thule Trail XT roof basket (medium). This is pretty expensive but I think it would've worked behind the sun roof and in front of the satellite antenna (it's a little longer).
https://www.rei.com/product/103194/thule-trail-xt-cargo-basket-medium

Have a Canyon with the extension on my 02 (replaced a Yakima Load Warrier with the extension) and I really like it. It's is much better looking than the LW, it makes less noise at highway speeds and it fits perfectly.
 
Have a Canyon with the extension on my 02 (replaced a Yakima Load Warrier with the extension) and I really like it. It's is much better looking than the LW, it makes less noise at highway speeds and it fits perfectly.

Do you have a satellite antenna up there?
 
Looks like this has to mount to cross bars.

Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk

Found the Link https://www.4xinnovations.com/mobile...-Kit_p_43.html
If you look at Kuat, Thule or any other basket and compare the sides, Rola has a bar running down the lower sides, where the others do not. This is what makes it possible to use mounts like the one in the link and not use factory bars.

Now from what I have read, the mounts are built for the 4th gen and work as intended on the 10-13 trail bars because they are actually taller than the sr5 or 14-up trail. BUT if you fab your own or use some washers as spacers it will work. My plan was to make my own, but you could also flip them if you don't want to use spacers.

It's not often that I can say "Trust me", but trust me. You could be done with this for under $250 if you go ebay for the rack and buy these mounts, less if you make your own.

Here is a link for the mounts on the 4th gen.
http://www.toyota-4runner.org/5th-gen-t4rs/186842-armor-tech-offroad-low-profile-rola-mounts.html

Also the 4x website and the 4th gen link show the side bars that I am talking about that are not on other racks.

Mike
 
I'm using a Loadwarrior without an extension for the moment. I picked it up on Craigslist with locks and mounts for 180.00. It was hard to pass it up and works great. I'll probably add an extension but for now it will do.
 
can you show us photos of your ride showing the roof rack from the other side without the awning? I like the low profile look of the rack, I have some friends looking into getting something similar.

Here you go. I didn't shoot it straight on sadly, so the angel is a little deceiving making the basket appear taller. But it is in-deed pretty sleek and low-pro. The big benefit, is that it fit in my garage perfectly :clap2:

<a href="http://s44.photobucket.com/user/mhajimomen/media/IMG_5442_zpsffufczhy.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f3/mhajimomen/IMG_5442_zpsffufczhy.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo IMG_5442_zpsffufczhy.jpg"/></a>
 
I know it doesn't mount directly to the rails without crossbars as the OP requested, but for $142 shipped (amazon) plus whatever the cost of a pair of crossbars (which I see in the classifieds on here all the time for cheap), the Rola rack is a super easy way to go. I may still be inclined to spend way too much on a Gobi or something down the road, but for my uses (camping, road trips, ski trips) I suspect I may find this is perfectly suitable and was wayyyyy less expensive. And in my opinion, it looks pretty good too. It's not suuuper low profile as is, but it seems to me it is lower profile than many other common racks (thule/yakima).

Fabricating custom mounts to eliminate the stock crossbars and side rails all together might be a slick fix as well as finding a way to mount my ski racks within, but for now this thing is pretty slick / easy IMO. There are plenty of threads about the poor quality (rusting) of these due to moisture penetrating the interior of the steel, so I took the time to add sealant to all screws and to the joints (and if I fabricate mounts, I'll weld the pieces together at that time to essentially eliminate the aforementioned issues), we'll see if it ultimately becomes a problem, but again for $140, I feel like you can't really go wrong.
 

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