Exposed Racks Roof Rack for Jeep JLU Soft Top - Square Bars - Steel - Black

Video Transcript for Exposed Racks Jeep Soft Top Roof Rack Review

Zach: Hey, everybody. Zach here at etrailer.com. Today, we're going to be taking a look at a really cool set-up from Exposed Racks.This is going to be a roof rack system for your Jeep whenever you want to take the top off. So if you've got a soft top, like we have here, we get the benefits of the Jeep by having the top off, but we can also take any of our accessories like we have here, a kayak or a ladder on the other side, so we get the best of both worlds. We don't have to have the hard top on to carry our accessories with those roof racks. We can get the top off, enjoy the nice day, take our boat out, take a ladder to the job site.

It's a really cool set-up, so let's take a closer look at how all of this works together.Now, when it comes to carrying stuff on our roof, everybody has their different items they're looking to carry. I like to take my kayaks out. If you have a Jeep, you don't have the bed of your truck to go to the hardware store, pick up some lumber, carry a ladder, so this is really nice to have this in place. You can see I have those load stops there, but a lot of people like to carry their bikes, ski and snowboards, cargo baskets. All of those things will work, especially if you already have some other brands that are out there.

We have some Exposed Racks adapters that will click in place the way these mount that you can attach to those already existing carriers that you have for your bikes and skis. So, let's take some of this stuff off and let's take a closer look at how all of these things mount in place, because it's a really cool, unique way.Another thing with these being able to be removed so easily, let's say I had to lifted Jeep. Now this one's a stock Jeep, so if I had a lift on there, I wouldn't be able to reach this that well, but I could easily pop these stops out, get those out of place, then I could slide my ladder off right here, instead of having to lift it up over, or try to slide it through the back. This makes it much easier to get stuff unloaded when I can easily remove the accessories.Now, regardless of what accessory you're putting in place, whether it's the kayak carrier, the adapters for other accessories or the load stops, they all install the same way. We have this little ball that we push in and you can see where that stop is.

This needs to face the front or rear of the vehicle, so we'll push that in. We'll put it in our respective square hole there, drop that in place, and you can see it clicks itself in, and I cannot remove that until I press that. So, this makes it extremely easy to get that put in place.And let's just say we didn't like it being in the exterior there. Maybe we're not carrying something as wide. Quickly just swap it to another one.

It's in another location. So wherever we need this to go throughout the crossbar, we can get that installed.Out driving around, my first initial reactions are one, it's odd having the items right above my head. I mean, they're always there even on a traditional roof and even seeing it through the sun roof on a traditional hard top on another vehicle, it's weird. But now that I can actually reach up and touch that ladder, it's different. It makes me a little bit more aware that this needs to be secured. And I can see that my ladder is doing a pretty good job of holding in place between those stops, and the straps definitely come in handy that I picked up, but the kayak carrier is still a little wobbly. It's not as much as I thought whenever we we're kind of playing around with it there before we started driving, but occasionally I can see it kind of rock back and forth. And I think it's definitely going to be okay. It just makes me more aware of it because I can see it out of the corner of my eye as I'm making a corner.But I like it. I think it's cool, kind of being able to see that stuff. I have the top off. It's a really nice day here today. And you know, we're not really doing anything in particular with our ladder or kayak, but it's nice that we can be able to get all of this different stuff on top of our roof and have the top off. I think that's a really cool benefit to this style set-up. But driving around as well, I'm not at highway speeds by any means, but it seems pretty quiet. You put anything on your roof, regardless of how aerodynamic the roof rack or the items are, it's going to make some noise. It's going to slow you down when it comes to your fuel economy. It's going to drop a little bit, but nothing about this makes me think that it's going to be anything drastic that will bother me long-term.When it comes to the height here, I'm a taller guy, and getting in and out of the Jeep, if I didn't install this properly, if I flipped those braces to where this crossbar sits a little bit further back, I'm definitely going to hit my head getting in and out of the vehicle. Just the way I move around and shift in the seat, I think I would hit my head there, and it's just not safe. So definitely install those the way that they have them in the directions, and that's just making the crossbar a little bit further. So don't get those brackets flipped or out.With all of our accessories removed, here's what you can see. Real low profile. I'm going to get this installed again, get everything in place . and you can see the soft top just goes right over it. You can see it goes right over our system, right here. Nothing's making contact. It's just a really good system that works with that factory soft top that we had on this JL today.Now the design of these crossbar systems, whether you have the Wrangler, the Unlimited, the Gladiator, the JK, the JL, it doesn't matter, the crossbars are going to be different links to accommodate those soft tops to close properly. So on this one here today, it's an 18 Wrangler Unlimited JL. This front crossbar's 51-1/2", the rear is 48-1/2. Now the center three mounting locations on each bar all line up with one another. The exterior mounting location, those don't line up, so that maybe create some issues when you're trying to get stuff loaded up properly. You can accommodate that with the kayak carriers and the offsets for the adapters.If you don't really like the quick link, maybe it's not really for you, but you like the idea of using the crossbar system with the soft top on your Jeep, you can just get the traditional more square bar style. That will accommodate your other brands' kayak carriers, bike carriers, whatever you're looking for. If it works with this traditional square bar, it will also work with this. This will measure at an 1-1/4" by an 1-1/4". That's really pretty standard for a lot of other brands' crossbars that are that square style, so it's going to work out great there. Just keep in mind, as you put those clamps around, it's going to be a little bit lower, a little bit more lower profile, so it's just something that's sticking out a little bit further.But I like this finish of the black one. It's got a nice texture to it. I think it really matches the Jeep. But if you want the red, it's also available in red. It's not quite as textured, but I think the red looks really cool as well. I'm just a personal fan of this black here that we have installed on this Jeep today.So to this being low profile to allow our soft top to close, we're not sticking this set up very high. It's actually, you know, if you don't have anything installed, it still looks good. We're not losing the look of our Jeep. It doesn't look goofy if we don't have anything in place. Up front on this Jeep here today, we are only adding about 3" up front from the bottom of this right here. And then on the rear crossbar, we are at about 2-1/8", so real low profile. Looks really nice. It's going to be really heavy duty. That's all steel. These center sections here where those quick links go down in, it's all laser cut. Everything's real nice and smooth. And it's pretty simple to get this installed. We just use existing factory location. So let's just take this back inside and let's get this installed together.The first thing we need to do is get our soft top pulled back, and we're going to swap out some of these bolts that are in here. Now I've done some of them already, but I'm just going to walk you through how to do this front one real quick. We're going to swap this bolt out that's running in from underneath right here, and it's going to look like this. You can use the Torx tool that comes with your Jeep. We're actually going to use a T40 that we have here separate today, and we're going to remove this one, get this taken out.Now, it doesn't take much effort to get these out. They're not in there extremely tight, but there is a decent amount of threads. So just stay patient with it. And once we get this one out, we can put in the bolt that comes with our kit. Get that completely removed. We'll set that aside. And then we will follow it up with the bolt that's included. It's the longer one like this. We'll put a washer on there where it's going to go right back up where we took that one out. And these are quite a bit longer with quite a few more threads, so get it pushed in there. Just get that put in place.Now, to get this tightened down all the way it does come with an Allen key, but I'm just going to use this socket hex that I have here, and that's a six. So we'll just get that tightened up. We don't have to over-tighten it, but we do want it to be snug. Then on top, we'll put a washer. We'll follow that up with a nut. Get that put in place, and then we will snug that up with a 13-millimeter socket. Now, with that bolt being a little bit longer, you're going to want to use a deeper well socket, get that snug. And then the rest of these are going to install the same way, except for the back set on our JL Unlimited here today.Now on the back bolts here on each side, the driver and passenger, we're going to have the same style bolt that runs up through there, but we're going to have these larger spacers and washers there to help spread that energy out. And then it just tightens down the same way.The next thing we need to do is install our brackets. I'm going to put a washer on top of those nuts that we just tightened down, and on the front, we're going to install the shorter of the brackets that comes in the kit. And it's important to place where the crossbar is going to lay towards the front of the vehicle. If we swap this around and had it on the wrong side, the crossbar would lay more towards the rear of the vehicle, and it's just a safety issue. If you're riding with your Jeep top off and that crossbar's directly over you, it's just a hazard, so it is definitely important to install this towards the front of the vehicle.But once we lay that in place, we can follow that up with another flat washer, and then we'll put a nut on top of that. Now these are a nylon lock nut, so we can get those put in place, and then I will tighten that down with a 13-millimeter socket or wrench. Get those nice and snug, and we can repeat that same process for the other side. And on the back crossbar on our JL Unlimited, we will install this the same way. And you can see that this is going to be a little bit longer bracket than the one we put on the front, so we'll put those washers on first. Place our bracket on.And this is where it's important to pick the right fit for your Jeep. Whether you have the JK, the JL, the Unlimited, you want to make sure you're getting the right kit so you have the right mounting brackets to get your bars installed. So we'll put those on just like that washer there, bracket, washer, then the nut, and we'll get those tightened down and we'll install the driver's side the same way.Next thing we can do is we can grab the longer of our two bars. We'll get this put in place. You might even be able to just slide it in place like this, get it lined up over there, and then we can take our hardware, and we'll get this hole lined up on the outside hole. There's two holes there, so you see there's one there and one there. Today, we're going to install this carriage bolt there, get that to line up. On the back side, we'll take a flat washer, a split lock washer, and then we will follow it up with this nut. And we can do the same thing on the other side. I'm just going to get this hand tight for now, and then we will get these tightened down.Once we get that hand tight and put in place, we can come back with a 9/16 socket and get this tightened down, and it's the same way with this. We don't have to be really aggressive with getting that tightened down. We just want that split lock washer to be flat. Want to have that tight enough.Once we get that fully tightened down, we're good to go. We can either put the top back in place or start getting our accessories loaded up. I think overall, this is a really cool addition to your Jeep. It gives us that versatility we're looking for. We want to take the top off and keep it back like this, we're good to go with leaving our roof rack on. Whenever it's time to put it back on, just make sure you take those accessories off. I think it has a really good purpose. It's strong. I think it looks good. And I like that it's kind of low profile. We don't have that taller roof rack that's on the hard top styles that you've probably seen before. So getting that versatility, getting that capability of putting stuff up on our roof, even with the hard top off, is a really nice plus. I think you're really going to like the Exposed Racks for the Jeeps with soft tops.