Video Transcript for Westin EXP Truck Topper Roof Rack Low-Down

Hi, Matt with etrailer. If you have the Westin EXP Truck Topper and you're looking for a way to really maximize what you can do with it, especially if you have those extra-long items, then the Westin Roof Rack is gonna be a great option for you. So let's check it out. This roof rack is gonna be a great addition to your topper. The reason being is if you're someone who's going on a lot of adventures, you're probably gonna keep most of your gear in here. And the best type of gear you're gonna keep is gonna be anything that's kind of dirty, that's out of mud, or even type of coolers, or if I have anything like this shovel.

Now, this shovel is something that you probably don't want too close to any type of clothing, luggage, or any type of sleeping bag, and that's where the roof rack's gonna come into hand. So that's gonna allow you to carry other type of accessories, anything, like this rooftop box, where you can keep those items if you wanna keep those type of things separated. And, on the flip side, if you have anything that's extra long, anything like a kayak or skis that just won't fit in the back of your bed, then your roof's gonna be the next best thing. Now when it comes to rooftop accessories, there's a lot of different types, and one of the main ones you're gonna find are just your standing roof racks that are gonna go on the cab of your truck. And those are great, they're gonna work really nice too.

But what I like about this even more is it offers you the same abilities as what those have, and they're gonna have more of this OEM finish because they're gonna be designed specifically to work with this topper and they're versatile on top of that. So let's actually kind of check out what they're gonna be like that you'll live with and use. So my favorite thing about this rack is gonna be how sits in these tracks. If I remove this little cap here, you notice we have this bolt and nut. I've actually loosened these up.

And what this does is lock this into place, but, with it loose, you can actually adjust where this sits, and you can slide this up and down on this tray. And that's important to be able to do that, because if you have a lot of different types of accessories, like your boxes, baskets, a ski carrier, a bike carrier, or kayak carrier, whatever it be, they'll probably all gonna have different crossbar spreads. And what that really is, is just a distance between each clamp. So being able to adjust this to fit your needs is gonna go a long way and make your life a little bit easier. Another feature you'll find is that we're gonna have these end caps, and that's how you're gonna put your gear on.

Now, with this type of crossbar, it does have this arrow shape to it. And with that arrow shape, that's just gonna allow you to have a, or make this a little bit more aerodynamic so it creates less wind noise. Definitely is gonna affect the comfort of your ride, so nice that we have it. But if you have any accessories that just won't fit around this very well or don't have very good clamps, what you could do instead is use your T-channel up top. The way we'll do that is move this weather strip out of my way, press on the very top of the cap, and pull this out. And that's gonna reveal that we have this channel right here, and that's where your T-channel accessories will sit into place. On top of that, we're also gonna have this weather strip on top. And what this weather strip does is it prevents any type of debris from entering in here and getting in the way of your gear. So this is just gonna make sure everything lasts longer and works better long term. And one more thing I wanted to point out with this crossbar is, with this weather strip, you will need to cut that down to size so it can work around your gear. And, talking about weather strips, we're gonna have this other type of rubber section on the bottom, and this is actually something pretty unique I don't see too often. I know we talked a little bit about that tower and how it slides in place, but with this weather strip here, what that's gonna do is prevent this from scratching up that channel. 'Cause a lot of times with these channels, they'll have metal-on-metal kind of scraping against one another. In this case, that rubber strip's gonna act as a buffer to ensure this lasts longer. Next step, I just wanted to talk about a few light specs. So we wanna know how high this is gonna stick up from our vehicle. So if we go from just the top of the topper, not going from the the rails or the tracks, just from the top of it, this is gonna be about five inches. So just make sure this will go underneath any low-clearance areas that you might be going under, a space to really think about would be a garage. So what I recommend doing is taking the total height of your truck and the bed of it, and how high this shell sits on top of that, and then include your roof rack and whatever's sitting on top of that too. Something else to consider is gonna be the space in between them, and that's gonna be around 3 1/2 inches. That's good to know if you have any really bulky clamps. In most cases, they should fit. But, again, if they won't fit, then you could always just use that T-channel we have on top. And this will have a weight capacity of 150 pounds per bar. So with both of these on here, that's gonna bring it up to 300 pounds. Just make sure that weight is evenly distributed. It's also important to note, you just stay within the specs of your shell or your topper, and also your bed too, especially if you already have a lot of things loaded in there and you're trying to pair these together. In my opinion, if I already had a Westin Topper, then I'd probably be looking at getting some roof racks with it. Like I said earlier, this is just gonna allow you to carry even more items with you on those longer adventures. And if you have extra-long items, this is gonna be perfect for it. Now, if you already have a roof rack on your vehicle, I think that's gonna be fine too. I think this will be a great pairing, 'cause you could even make a platform of sorts for those extra-long items. But that was just a look at some of the features of the Westin Roof Rack for your Westin Topper. I'm Matt, thanks for watching.