Custom roof support for a Kayak (Paging Dave T)

[Brianmitchtay]

I'm moving to Glacier Bay National Park for a summer of Sea Kayak touring and I'm planning to bring a ~22 foot, 95 pound, Tandem expedition kayak with me on top of the GL wagon. Reading the weight limits for the track mounted roof rack I have, I'll be WAY over the recommended max of 100 Pounds between the Kayak and my roof box, plus I'll really only have the thing supported in the middle without a support farther forward. So I figure the responsible thing to do is build a kayak support for the front and attach it to the frame somewhere.

I'm imagining a welded square bar frame with a pin that I can pull to lay the bar down and across the front of the bumper (i.e. out of the way), or rotate it up to support the kayak if I'm bringing it along with me.

I've seen that Dave T has something near what I'm imagining trying to build as his profile photo -albeit super low res - and so I'm hoping he'll come around to shed some light on what he had going on there and more specifically, where and how it was attached to the soob if at all

Has anyone else built a custom support like this? If you were going to do it, where would you attach it to the frame? I think I might cut a hole through the plastic cover in front of the radiator if it could be affixed there. 

[sparkyboy]

Have a look at this gaudy roof rack:

I once put a canoe on this thing, 115 lbs and just ratchet strapped to the bumper it came with the car and was held together with nuts and bolts. It was rather crappy but to its credit it did a fine job. So yours should be more than adequate.

Cheers man! Sounds like good times ahead!

[DaveT]

My Web page has a picture or 2 of the rack.  I've hauled a few hundred pounds of sheet rock or vinyl siding or lumber on it.  It is suppored by plate that slip into the rain gutters on the sides, and the 2 verticals down to the front bumper.   The tie in to the existing roof rack is only for horizontal loads, not the weight of the loads.  Iirc, my Web page is linked in my profile on this site.

[DaveT]

I can add detail pictures if you let me know what parts or angles would help.

[Brianmitchtay]

13 hours ago, DaveT said:

My Web page has a picture or 2 of the rack.  

Alright I just popped over there and checked it out. The higher res pictures from your website were definitely very helpful. I had imagined that those two support legs that you have resting on the front bumper were actually connected to the car and provided some rigidity. That's really what I'm shooting to do.

[Brianmitchtay]

18 hours ago, sparkyboy said:

Have a look at this gaudy roof rack:

I once put a canoe on this thing, 115 lbs and just ratchet strapped to the bumper it came with the car and was held together with nuts and bolts. It was rather crappy but to its credit it did a fine job. So yours should be more than adequate.

Cheers man! Sounds like good times ahead!

It should be an awesome time! and I like the "crappy" rack on your ride, looks very utilitarian. Is it connected to more than just four points on the car? I'm thinking part of my solution might be to somehow connect to the other tracks on the roof to further support and stabilize the load. I'm just nervous that with a 20 foot, 100 lb Kayak, plus a 16 cubic foot, 200 pound Roof box, I'm going to hit a bump or a strong cross wind and have my roof rack blown off the top of the car.  

[DaveT]

Yes, there are blocks bolted to the front bumper.  The X made with the red straps is needed when carrying long heavy loads.  And also for  sheet goods, that will catch a lot of wind.  They hook to the towing hooks and the tops of the vertical supports.  With the X straps in place, you can grab the rack anywhere and shake the entire car with it.  Without them, the rack could twist off.  They also prevent wind that inevitably gets under the load from lifting the entire thing off the car.

I don't trust the factory rack mounts to hold a lot, they are only small screws into sheet metal.

The front section is pinned to the main part, so it can be easily removed when not in use.  It is all aluminum, with stainless hardware, because I didn't want rust stains all over the car.  Do use anti seize compound on them, or they will corrode and NOT be disasembleable in a few years. 

The 4 vertical load supports that go into the rain gutters have a piece of vinyl tubing cut to make a pad to prevent the metal cutting through the paint.

The aluminum is 1" x 2" x 1/8" wall tubing.  I used 1/8" sheet to make the vertical supports for the back section to rain gutters, 6" wide into the gutters.  L brackets 1/8" thick tie the cross members to the OEM rack rails, using their nuts.  I doubled them by using a set from a scrapped car, so there are 8 tie points to those OEM rails.