Today on this 2003 Volkswagen Jetta we are going to install roof rack. We will be using part numbers from Thule. These low bars here are part number THLB50 and the foot pack here is part number TH480 and the pieces along the side are the fit kit part number THKIT1051. We will start off with the assembly and we will take one of the low bars and take one of the feet, end cap, a bracket from the fit kit, and one of the pads. We will assemble it now. Put the bar inside the foot and we are going to open this lever up to unlock it. Take the bar, slide it in, and just leave it loose for now. Put on the end cap. Flip it over. Open this little door here, it snaps open. Remove the Acutight tensioning tool. Take the bracket and it is going to fit into this slot right here and pull back up and it falls in. Leave that alone for now. 01:00
Reinstall the tool and then install the foot pad and notice the foot pads have numbers on them. The numbers are for the left and right side and front and rear. You can see how the foot pads are made. They are approximately about 1/ 4 inch to about 3/ 8 of an inch in thickness and this matches the roof line of the vehicle. The foot pad just simply to snaps into place and just push it on. We have the one side done now. Lets repeat it for the other side. When you do these you want to make sure that you have the right numbers in the right spot for the pads. This pad is marked 22 so that is going to be the bar that goes toward the back of the vehicle. We will put the same pad on the other side. We can start installing the roof rack on our Jetta. 01:41
Open up the doors and what we have to do is remove this weather strip just for now to install the brackets and the weather strip will go back on. The reason I took the weather strip off is because the rack attaches to these bolts that are installed on the roof line. You will have to do that on both sides so we will get that cleared out and then we will put on the rack. Put the fit kit right over that bolt and do the same thing on the other side. Once we have it installed we will take the Acutight tensioning tool, snug it down, and do it evenly on both sides and you want to have the whole foot pack assembly even on both sides. When you tighten it down our Acutight tensioning tool tells exactly when you hit the right torque. What is going to happen is this green line is going to line up with this gray line and once we have done that we know we are good and just put it into place. Install the rear cross bar now and it is going in just like the first one. It is going to use this bolt to the inside just like the front one and now we can reinstall the weather strip and with those easy steps our roof rack is installed. There you have it for part number TH480, the traverse foot kit, fit kit part number THKIT1051, and the cross bars THLB50.
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