Max weight on top of the 5th gen?

I see you know how to park appropriately. I appreciate a good parking spot as well.

 

I would be skiddish of using OEM cross bars, with that type of basket, and that much weight. I have a gobi and don't want to put a spare tire up there because of what other have pointed out - lots of weight up top raises the center of gravity and makes it tippy.

The other thing this makes me think of is the newer BBC top gear episode I watched today with Matt le blanc. It wasn't him (one of the other two - don't know their names because I'm an OG top gear fan) but they bolted a basket onto the OEM rails of a small Suzuki 4x4 in the UK and tried to drive it up a hill - it was technically 2 ft short of being classified as a mountain. Before he was halfway up in that rough terrain the basket had broken the rails or mounts on one side and was hanging off the side of the vehicle. Roof baskets that bolt to OEM rails just aren't made for the type of punishment a roof rack replacement is designed for

This ended up smashing the side of the vehicle before being completely torn off

 

That’s lookin nice back there!

 

I love my BP-51, no need to air down, the truck swims.

 

Being a top gear episode, it very well could have been staged. Point being, stock rails aren't designed for that

Didn't you post somewhere else that the basket is rusting all over your roof?

 

Nice, parking like that makes me giggle like a kid lol. My first rock parking job was proud moment for me.

Ok, here are my thoughts on the whole roof rack business. I realize everybody figures out their own solution, and I respect that because we’re figuring out as we go.

Toyota has set the weight limit they’ll vouch for, and it’s pretty low. Even though aftermarket roof racks might publish higher dynamic and static weight limits, I highly doubt it’s a limit for anything other than the integrity of the mounts and rack itself. I have not seen any rack manufacturer test an installation dynamically until the mounts get pulled out of the roof, the roof caves in, or the body gets racked sideways.

It’s important to keep in mind that the side to side rocking motions that happen on any mild trail going at moderate speeds, or off camber angle changes can put huge pulling loads, compression loads, and racking loads directly on the roof structure.

Beefy mounts may be strong, but it doesn’t help if it’s stronger than the little T nut hardware arrangement on the inside of the roof. How much racking does it take to pull those through the roof in a hard side-to side motion? In the few years I’ve been looking, I haven’t seen any aftermarket company do actual destructive testing to get weight limit numbers I’d be willing to trust.

So in the meantime, anybody loading up an aftermarket roof rack is truly on their own to figure it out. That’s why it’s good to actually try to visualize the forces that get imparted to the four mounting points. Take for example that spare tire. It weighs about a 100 pounds. If you put it on top of a 5 foot structure, then swing that structure side to side with the pivot on the bottom, how much force is required to accelerate it and decelerate it? I can easily imagine on a road that rocks you side to side, shock loads could be 3 or 4 times the weight of the tire applied sideways on the mounts and roof. How many of those cycles can the roof take before a fatigue failure of the roof steel?

That’s what I think about whenever I’m considering how to load the roof.

In my case, I decided to make a simple rack that uses the stock rails and mounts, because I’d rather trust the wide weight distributing mounts. The wide pad contacting the roof limits fatigue forces at least into the roof, and the plastic construction will probably break before forces get too out of hand. Maybe…because I don’t know that…I havent destroyed my 4runner roof to find out. That’s why anybody going above toyotas limit is completely on their own.

So like has already been mentioned, be strategic in how you use the roof if you are concerned about longevity. The best bet is to keep the roof for bulky lighter options as much as possible. Remove it or unload it when the storage is not necessary to limit metal fatigue of the roof. And don’t assume just because somebody on the youtube has 1000 pounds on it, that it wont ultimately break the body of the vehicle.

 

Some rattling was coming from the roof rack while driving on the freeway. I stuffed a piece of paper there and it solved the problem. Do you think the spare tire on the roof rack is the culprit?

 

Yeah, starting to rust. I will apply some Surface Shield tomorrow. Very crappy product

 

After building my own (very simple) rack, is when I realized how hard it is to get it all welded up without little pinholes here and there. Those are where rust comes from (assuming the paint is applied properly). Paint cant wick itself into those little pits and the spot oxidizes. It’s worse if the pinhole is open to the inside of the tube and water/moisture gets in. The best way to avoid that is to get a fully welded rack (inside of the tubes would be sealed off), welded by an expert, and finished properly before prime and paint.

Aluminum racks corrode as well once the paint starts chipping.

I believe LFD still make a stainless rack. That would be the closest to rustproof as you can get.

 

Will hold on to this crap for a year or so and then will get something much better

 

I mean rattling coming from sunroof area

 

I doubt it unless you’ve been doing fast desert runs. With only the tire up there, I can’t imagine you’re over the max weight. If you cant solve it, I’d maybe take it off to see if a the weight causes a slight flex.

Im sure weight causes some degree of flex just being up there, but I wouldnt think it would be enough to be the cause of rattles after only a few weeks.

 

Will take it to the dealer, something must be loose.

 

If you think this should be warranty issue, you might want to take the tire and rack off. They cant deny warranty just because you modified it, but they can deny it if they even suspect, or can suspect, that a modification is related to the problem.

As an example, when I took mine in because of the needle bearing noise in the diff, they blamed my stock sized K02s tires and wrote it up as “off-road tires make a lot of noise”. These were relatively new, soft,quiet, and cushy K02s! And they magically got quiet when you switched into 4wd, go figure.

 

Not sure why they can deny warranty for 100 lbs out stuff on the roof of the truck.

 

What tires are they? They are very aggressive

 

I have a genuine question, do ya'll have issues getting a 100+ pound tire on/off the roof? Especially a rack you can't walk on. I feel like doing essentially a forward barbell raise while standing on a tire would be a total bitch.

I never loaded any single object that was maybe more than 50 on the roof and I still climbed on top to lift with my legs.

Maybe what I'm really asking is what is ya'lls upper body workout routine? Haha

 

You might change your tune if you drive down some washboard roads.

But, the bigger purpose of airing down is traction and flotation. It's a game changer in deep sand.

Yokohama Geolandar MT. I chose them after a lot of reading. It came down to them and Toyo, and the Yokohamas were cheaper and lighter.

 

This is a good question! I thought about it myself when I was considering keeping my summer spare up there. Probably the heaviest and bulkiest things I've put up there have been the case I keep the Hi-Lift in and my kayak, and neither one is much fun to load up there.

Maybe I'll try getting one up there The next time I have the roof rack on, just out of curiosity. My thought was to try to lift the tire above my head and then kind of slide it on like I do with the kayak. But, this could probably go very badly if I lose my grip.

 

Another reason I don't put a tire up there!

 

We

Yeah, the truck wasn't doing it. My lazy ass had to get out and air down. It's pretty steep but doesn't look on the camera. Had a good day

 

Was this a straight line at some point?

 

You have really sharp eyes my friend. But that didn't happen because of the weight of the tire or anything, my stupidity caused it. Long story short, the shovel strap came under the tire and part of it was around the roof rack, so the 4Runner bent that. I ended up in a dangerous position, so I had to create some traction with the shovel. Momentum could have killed me lol

 

I’ve been wondering about that. How do the tents work without damaging the vehicle?

 

Thanks for sciencing this. That makes up my mind on the rooftop tent idea.

 

The weight rating is for a dynamic load. The roof will support a lot more weight than that.

 

By dynamic load you mean if the vehicle is moving? So, if people are using the tent while parked, the load limit is higher?

 

Correct. I don't think Toyota has a rating for static load, though. So, it's just a matter of personal judgement.

Personally, I wouldn't be concerned about overloading it, though, because it should be strong enough to hold up in a rollover. Speaking of which; the increased risk of a rollover would be my biggest concern with putting extra weight on the roof.

 

dude no offense bro but I think you need to research some off roading videos before you do some potentially serious damage to your rig

the reasons for airing down is you get more traction (contact patch), also even if you have 10 ply tyres they’re not puncture proof, you drive over a sharp rock you’re fucked and you’ll probably destroy your back trying to take that heavy af spare from your roof, airing down makes your Tyre less likely to puncture when driving over rocks and lastly it’s a lot smoother ride

 

what if you get in a gnarly accident? Won't that tire kill you?