I'm leaving for a canoe trip with friends on the St Mary's River (between GA & FL) on Friday and just realized that I needed longer roof rack bars. It's tough securing two tandem canoes (36" wide each) on the 66" bars that came on my new-to-me SMB. I tracked down a pair of 78" bars tonight and went to install them in place of the 66" ones. Since this tower type was new to me, I actually looked at the instructions:
http://assets.yakima.com/resource/produ ... structions
http://assets.yakima.com/resource/produ ... structions
Then I went to remove the bars and ARRRRGH! they won't unlatch to remove them! It's dark, everything's wet from the rain earlier and SMB North went home 4 hours ago. Now what?
After some head scratching and looking at things for a while, I figured it out. Yakima has an optional locking system that uses lock cores that plug into a socket on the tower latch and operate a locking mechanism. If the lock cores are not installed, a plastic plug fills the socket but the mechanism can still be operated if the plug is removed. The clever rascals at SMB North had re-installed the bars and set the locking mechanism so the tower latch stayed latched. I wonder if they had a pool going on when I would call?
When you remove the black plug and look in, if the dot on the grey disk is on the right, the latch is locked:
If the dot (really a small hole) is pushed down with something pointy, it unlocks the latch:
The latch can now be snapped down; the allen socket tightens the bar clamp:
The lock is a T-lug that turns in this rectangular hole to secure the latch:
Lock cores with key and smooth installation key; the pin on the core fits in the small hole and operates the lock mechanism:
Once the new bar is tight, the latch can be closed:
Now the lock core can be installed using the smooth key to retract the securing plates:
Once in place, hold the core in with your finger, remove the smooth key and lock with regular key:
The only other installation drama was that the Yakima rails are not parallel to each other although they are parallel to the penthouse sides. This means the tower spacings for the front and rear bars are not the same. The penthouse sides themselves are not parallel and are about 2" narrower in the back.
The Delta Flyer
Linear Mode
