Penthouse Yakima surf racks install

[Bosco53]

Before doing this, I did quite a bit of searching to see if I was missing anything. I've spent a lot of years playing with Vanagon Westfalia's but this is my first SMB. To my surprise I could find almost nothing documented. Most folks seem to do the track version installed on top of the roof. Which is great. But I already had a set of racks and towers sitting around and it was much more cost effective to buy some artificial rain gutters and mount them to the side. Plus no risk of internal water leaks!

Anyway, pics should speak for themselves. Only thing I would do differently is place the false rain gutters up another inch. Would just make it easier to adjust/install the towers/bars as clearance is tight.

Apparently the forum only likes pics in landscape!🤷🏻

[bigriver]

Bingo! Looks great. I used something similar when I put racks on a suburban years ago.

[rizzabove]

Looks sweet. One thing that caught my eye was the long bolt ends on the inside of the top. Did you cut them flush? I’d cut them to a correct length for cap nuts so your canvas doesn’t get ruined when the top is down.

[Bosco53]

Good eye. Yes, those bolts were silly long. I did cut them so to avoid any possible canvas tearing issues.