Alright, today on this 2008 Acura RDX we are going to install roof rack. We will be using parts from Thule and we will be using the following part numbers. First off, we are going to use the Traverse foot pack, this will be part number TH480. And then we are going to be using roof rack bars, THLB58. And then we are going to use a fit kit. And these are actually the parts that actually adapt the roof rack to the roof line of the vehicle itself. That is going to be part number THKIT1550. Alright, we will go ahead and assemble one side. It looks like there is a lot of parts but it is really easy to put together. So let us go ahead and remove the excess parts we need and go ahead and do one side. 0:37
The best way to start off is to pick out one side of the rack that you want to work with. In this case we are going to start with the driver side in the front and we picked out the parts that are in the instructions for this location. And the parts do specify specific numbers. For instance, on the rubber pad here, it has part number 204 and the instructions tell you that this is located on the driver side in the front. You can see it has a really nice thick pad to it. It is about a 1/2 inch here on one side and about 7/8 inch on the other. And you can see how it matches the roof line this way. And then the same thing applies to the metal bracket. It is stamped inside here where it says 591. That is for the location that we are working with. This bracket is covered in a plastic finish so it will not scratch or mar the paint job on your vehicle. 1:31
First we will go ahead and install the Traverse foot here. We will open up the hatch. We will take out our little tool here. This is the Accutight tensioning tool. We will talk about that more later. We will set that to the side. And then on the other side we will go ahead and pull this lever down to latch and hold these on to the cross bar. Let us go ahead and just slide it onto the bar. And we are going to just leave this loose for now because we have to have a final measurement before we set it on the roof. We will flip it over and we will open up this hatch here. And we will pull up on this metal section, on this metal bracket right here. It helps to pull in the bolt right here and that way we can slip in our fit kit bracket. And that just slides into place and then it clicks. Alright, we will just leave that alone for now. And then we will take our foot pad itself and that just gets pushed in place. We will install the tensioning tool back inside just for now so we do not loose it. Alright, and then last we will put our end cap on. We have the one side done now. We will go ahead and repeat this procedure on the other side of this bar and the next bar. 3:15
Alright, we have our roof bars loosely assembled. What we are going to have to do next is go ahead and measure out between this edge of the bracket and this edge of the bracket. And our front rail, we are going to measure out to 44-1/4 inches. And then on the back rail we are going to do the same thing but we are going to measure out to 40-1/2 inches. Now this measurement can vary depending on the vehicle. But this basically gives you a good starting point to base your install on. Okay, once we have everything measured out, we will lock them into place by pushing down this lever right here. Okay, we have these assembled. Let us go ahead and install them on the vehicle. Alright, let us go ahead and repeat the same process with the bar that goes to the back of the vehicle. Alright, now that you have them set on the roof, what we need to do next is properly space them apart. The first measurement, we are going to start off with the edge of the windshield here to the inside edge of the foot pack and that is going to need to be 10 inches. Once we have that measured and set up, we will go to the next measurement which is a space between both bars. And that is going to be, from center of the bar to center of the bar, 27-3/4 inches. 5:03
Once we have them spaced out we can go ahead and fasten them to the roof. Alright, we will go ahead and open the hatch. We will pull out the tool here and this is Thules Accutight tensioning tool. And we can use this to tighten down the foot pack to the roof. And we do this a few times on each side to get the pressure equal. Now we get to the part for why they call this the Accutight tensioning tool. What happens is when you reach enough tension on the roof rack itself, this line in the green part here will match up to the line on the gray part. Once you have done that, you know you have reached enough torque and you can go ahead and you do not need to tighten any more. Alright, when it is tight enough, go ahead and just push it back inside. Close the hatch and go ahead and do the same thing with the back row. And you can see it is nice and tight. It is not going to go anywhere. Alright, with the roof rack installed, we can install any accessory on top of that now, be it a cargo box, bicycle carrier or even a kayak carrier. Okay with that that finishes our install of the Thule roof rack. And again this includes part numbers TH480, the Traverse foot pack, the THLB58 load bars, and then the fit kit itself for this specific vehicle is part number THKIT1550.
