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Old 05-02-2016, 09:21 PM   #1
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Penthouse Rubber Treatment/Weight on Penthouse while driving?

Had two quick questions for anybody that may have an answer:

1) The rubber on bottom of Penthouse roof on my penthouse is faded and seems a bit dry. There is no cracking yet, but has anybody ever treated theirs with anything. The standard answer would seem to be Armor All, but I've found that to make anything I put it on worse. Any suggestions?

2) I have mounted 78" raingutter racks (Yakima) to my Penthouse roof. On it I currently put a Yakima Skybox 21' and I'm thinking of putting about a 35 lb roof basket on top. I'd load the Skybox and roofbasket with a lot of the items that go outside the SMB when I park - chairs, firewood, cooler, some outdoor kitchen stuff, etc. I may possibly put one or two bikes up as well.

Two questions -
a) I'll empty the box and basket at the site so it will have no more than say 65 lbs on top of the box. I use secured poles at each corner when raised as well to make sure it doesn't smash a kid at night if higher winds or challenging conditions arise. Do you feel this is ok. I've seen people mention it can hold up to 300 lbs, but it seems nuts raised.

b) The other question is on the road. I have the raingutter attachments in the fiberglass with 4 bolts each similar to:

Installing Yakima Brackets on a Westy Top

But a loaded up Skybox, Roofbasket and bike up there blazing down the road at 70mph makes me a bit nervous as it is fiberglass. Thoughts? Is it too much? Does anybody have pictures of their loaded up fiberglass top to put my mind a bit at ease?

The penthouse is not powered roof, but standard backbreaker edition if that makes any difference.

Thanks!

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Old 05-03-2016, 07:47 AM   #2
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replacement rubber roof trim is available from SMB....should be in their store on the website.....you have to poke your own fastener holes though.

Since you have stuff on the roof permanently, consider adjusting your springs....you should be able to get it to go up easier, and come down slower....assuming that it presently goes up with difficulty and comes down easy.
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Old 05-15-2016, 04:45 PM   #3
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Second what boywonder said about balancing the springs...I had mine set up so you had to hang to get it down if it was not loaded.
For the rubber trim and WINDOWS and ZIPPERS try Aerospace Protectant 303, a water based silicon that many boatowners use for vinyl. Works great and doesn't stiffen the vinyl.
Also replacing the roof rubber is a bit of a pain, and you might be able to use the old holes with some care. I did have problems with the fasteners supplied by the Texas facility as they were larger core diameter with shorter wings...they said they couldn't get the original ones that were used by Texas and Fresno....Fortunately located suitable ones that fit the old holes elsewhere. Didn't contact Fresno to see if they had the original ones...
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