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Mopar Roof Rack Install DIY

42K views 43 replies 15 participants last post by  mikesova 
#1 · (Edited)
Well I've finally gotten my camera to connect to my computer, so now I can finnaly get this mod out of the way! Overall it was an easy job that took about an hour and a half.

The Rack kit in all its un-assembled glory.

Firstly, you must remove the plastic roof trim panels by using a wedge and some patience. There is a Section in the knowledge base that illustrates this better than I could so I'll refer you there for this little section. After that is removed you'll need to remove any of the white plastic pins that may be not have come of with the roof trim.

If there are any left in the holes you should use a U-shaped pry-tool to remove them or you can use 2 flat-head screw drivers if your VERY careful.

Next we drill the holes in the trim!

This is easily the hardest part, getting the paper guides in the correct position. If you arent comfortable with this, then you may want to have a body shop or someone more proficient with a drill do it for you. I used a nail to make a small center hole for later drilling, and then removed the paper guide.

This is what happens when you drill plastic in 110 degree weather inside a 115 degree garage after the car has been in the sun all morning...

Luckily this can be easily fixed with a box-cutter or razor blade. If your holes look like this don't fret, mine cleaned up great!


Nice clean holes on the dirty dirty hood of my 90 Bronco2.

Next you'll need to trim off the little plastic tabs on the underside of your roof trim.

The instructions are clearly done, and show you which ones need to be removed, you'll be removing eight of them. Again our handy dandy box cutter does the job fine.


This is quite possibly the most terribad Rivet tool I've ever used. Mine wore-out halfway through installing rivets. The best way to fix it is to use a small pair of lock-washers between the rivet and the extension piece, and the extension piece and the flat metal bar. This part was REALLY annoying and my hand was a touch sore after all eight of them.

With the Rivets installed, now its time to bolt in your mounting plates.

They are labeled LF, RF, LR, and RR. make sure the right one goes in the right spot, they are all different! The instructions again have great pictures!

After that its all a breeze! All that needs to be done is to put new washers on your white plugs and pop the trim rail back on! After this you either continue wuth rack assembly(which I forgot to take pictures of) or insert the black plastic plugs that cover the holes you just drilled. The car looks bone-stock with the plugs in.
 
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#43 ·
I installed one of these recently.

My rivet tool also stopped working, so I had to use the lock washer technique. I was missing one of the bolts for the feet and one of my bolts that bolts the foot to the car was too short, so i had to get a new one from the hardware store.

Lining up the feet with the bracket under the trim is kind of a pain. I had a hard time threading the bolts into the brackets. My advice to anyone putting this together would be to run a tap through the threads on the brackets that bolt to the car before installing them to clean up the factory threads. Other than it being kind of a pain to install, I really like it. I am glad I have one that I don't need to clamp to the door sills.
 
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