TRD Pro Roof Rack removal

Thought I would post my experience with my TRD Pro Roof Rack removal. This is a notoriously trouble some process.

First, get a torch, it made everything a lot easier. It was 50 bucks from Home Depot. Pic below. It was a TS4000.

Secondly, keep things hot. Careful not to bubble the rack paint. I did this the worse on the first one. Light the torch inside the bolt area, this mitigates the heating of the surrounding area.

If you think you stripped one of the bolts. Get it hot and hammer your star bit, t40, back into it. Let it cool. I was able to do this successfully twice on ones I kind of stripped that wouldn't hold the bit.

Make sure to walk them off very slowly and when it gets tight reheat. Do both bolts back and forth, if you remove one, you will spin the clip.

Overall, it took 30 minutes. The Westcott video on removal is spot on.

I will post pics when my Westcott rack and ladder come in the next couple weeks

 

And of anyone local to the Quad Cities, Iowa wants my rack, I'll let it go for free if some one comes to pick it up.

 

One thing I did to help was get a round copper spacer that fit exactly where the bolt is and that prevents the heat from spreading and focuses on the bolt alone while using the torch.

Something like this:

 

That's a pretty great offer!

Are you replacing the rack or going rackless?

I'd have thought a new vehicle would have been a lot less trouble to remove one of these...

 

I am replacing with a Westcott and ladder.

Heat gun won't get the bolt hot enough to melt the locktite.

 

Plenty of people have torched there with no issues. We are talking about a matter of 5-10 seconds and its also a good idea to use painters tape around the surrounding area. On the other hand some people have removed them with no heat at all, and other have stripped the bolts and dropped the brackets to the headliner. So results may vary

 

I had the dealer take the rack off my new TRD PRO as part of the deal. The dealer swapped the rails from my 2022 SR5 as they didn't have the delete kit parts. I will probably delete those rails once the weather warms up.