Exposed Racks Roof Rack for Jeep JK and JKU Hardtop - Square Bars - Steel - Black

Video Transcript for Exposed Racks Jeep Hardtop Roof Rack Installation - 2013 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited

What's up everybody. It's AJ with etrailer.com. Today, we're going to be checking out. This exposed rack roof rack system on this 2013 Jeep Wrangler unlimited, this is going to be a good system, a roof rack that attaches to the rain gutters on your hard top. That way you don't have to drill any permanent holes or mess with the hard top at all. It easily goes on there and it comes right back off when you don't want it, let's check it out.

If you have a Jeep Wrangler, JL, or JL unlimited or even a Jeep gladiator, these exposed racks also have ones for those kinds of tops, too. You can find those on our website as well. If we look at the top of the bars. You're going to see the square holes and those are going to be for accessories. And I suppose racks has a bunch of different accessories.

For example, this is going to be a load stop. This is just one of the many and how it's going to work. Much like the other accessories are you pushing this silver button here. You put it right there in the square hole and slide down. And now it's in place.

So it's that easy to attach those accessories and kind of customize the bars, just like you would your own Jeep, showing different examples of the accessories you can get with the exposed racks. These are going to be the offset kayak carrier ones. And they go in the same slot much like all the other accessories. So from the load stops the offset kayak carriers to the center, kayak carriers to the paddle holders. You can even get a platform on the top that uses those same slots slides in there really easy and you can take it off and replace them.

So if you're constantly putting different stuff on your roof, this is a really good option because it's really easy to switch out those accessories. One negative side to this though, is that the brackets are specifically for the JK and JK unlimited are going to cover up this bottom hole here at the end. So then you can't use accessories on the outer mouse one because this bottom part is covered up and that button can't pop into place. So that does eliminate four of the holes you could use on the outside. Now, even though all of these in the end, you're not gonna be able to use there's three usable slots here on the front and the rear bars, and they're gonna be 12 and a half inches apart from each other. So it gives you plenty of options. When you are at an accessories on where you want to put them the whole system is made out of a black powder coat steel and it has a weight capacity of 165 pounds. So just keep that in mind when you're loading it up with your gear, that's how much you can put on there, now to also help it out with weight distribution. As you have these feet here at the bottom just in case you load it up and it starts to go down a little bit. It's going to keep it from coming down on your roof because it's got this extra support. Now, if you need even further support there's going to be holes here underneath. You can get these feet, you can screw in. And that's going to go on these top ridges here just to add again, more weight distribution help out with those heavier loads on the roof. Let's go over some measurements real quick. The bar itself is going to be 51 and a half inches long. And then we're gonna go from this Ridge here to the top of the bar. It's going to be two and a half inches. It's going to add to your roof. Then from the roof to the bottom of the bar is going to be an inch and a quarter. And then the square bar itself is going to be an inch and a quarter thick on all sides. Looking at the clamp it's going to be made of the same material as the bar up there, so that black powder coated steel you know, it's going to hold up the rust and corrosion. It also holds everything nice and tight. I can shake the Jeep back and forth and there's no rattling whatsoever in the bar or in our point here, or the bracket here and the clamp down here, there's no movement or anything. So I like that. No rattling. And it holds it really nice and tight together. You got the foam pads on the inside. So that's also going to be on the outside of this lip and on the inside this one. So it's going to protect that rain gutter from getting damaged or scratched. It's a good system. That's going to hold up really well. There are some other options out there for rain gutter roof racks. But this one, I kind of prefer to the other ones just because it's got that black powder coat steel, like I mentioned and not much else it blends in with your hard top like this. It doesn't have like some the other ones have plastic pieces on the outside. They kind of stick out a little bit more or the kind of an eyesore and the same thing with the wheels. Some of them have a wheel to tighten them down such as big hand-on that's out here and just doesn't look right on top of the Jeep to me. I prefer this system. It looks factory and it's low key. If you're not interested in being low key and you want to kind of stand out or you just want to match your G you also can get an exposed roof rack in red. So if you have a red Jeep or you just want to stand out on your hard top. That is an option. I mentioned earlier how easy it is to install and take back off when you don't need it. So it's much easier than drilling holes in your hard top, is going to be pretty easy installation where you just kind of put it together, a little bit on the table. Follow along with me and see how I did it. I've got some of the parts laid out on the table so I can show you how to assemble your crossbar with the bracket really easy. Instead, your bracket, you see the open side up top just gonna put that underneath there. And what we're going to do is line up this slot with this hole here. Cause that's where the hardware is going to go in. Now, before I do that real quick I need both hands over here to the bolt, that's going to go through there. I recommend using some anti-seize because it is stainless steel. And if you go to run that down with the stainless steel nut, it could get stuck. So we're going to take it now run the bolt through this end, put that hole and you might have to push up a little bit on the bracket. So it clears that hole to slide that bolt right through. Just like that. And then we'll come back with our washer and lock washer and loosely put on the nut on this side. You want to leave it loose because you want to be able to slide this bracket back and forth. Once you get on the roof for adjustments. And that's good right there. Now ready to set it down on the roof, make sure the tab is going to go in the rain gutter, just like that. Line that up on both sides make sure you keep the bar straight across and not angled. So I'm just trying to eyeball from here. It looks pretty straight. And then what we're going to do is look at the side to sides and we have to hop down and look, but make sure the bar is going to be evenly spaced on each side. Now we're going to pull out on this bracket just to get lined up with the rain gutter. So I need to push it in. And that's the adjustment from side to side I was talking about and that's why we left these loose in the first place. With the roof bar into place. This would be a good time to measure from center to center where it is. Now exposed racks recommends that you stay somewhere in 24 and 36 inches. So we're going to go center center here, say I want a little off on that. One was like 34 and a half inches. So we're right in where they say we could be and make sure you check that on the other side, before adding the feet, now we're going to come back and add our foot, our clamp to the bottom. So you're just going to put this on the bottom of the rain gutter here, line up with this part here put the bolt and the lock washer up through there. And then start to hand tighten it, once you get it started you can come back with the tool and tighten it down further. Got a good start there. I can continue tightening down. When you're tightening this down. Make sure you do it just enough to compress that foam there in the middle. You don't want to over-tighten it. And the same thing as you want to jump back and forth and do this evenly. So you don't want to tighten down one side all the way and then go to the other and kind of jumping back and forth. Just make sure it evenly tightens down. Now, finally, we're going to come back and tighten up these bolts in the crossbars and the brackets. With all the tightening down I always like to give it a good shake back and forth. You can see the Jeep is going back and forth. There's no rattling whatsoever. And the pieces that we put together. So none here in the clamp, none here in the bracket and none here in the rail. So it's going to be nice and tight on your roof, on your travels. Well, I think it's going to be really helpful to have with your Jeep. I liked the aspect of easy to put on and take off and you didn't have to drill any holes in your hard top. So I really like this system. I think it's gonna work out especially if you go the accessory route and get those. Well thanks for hanging out. And I hope this helped..