Video Transcript for Mount: Landing Pad 19 for Yakima SkyLine and Control Towers on a 2023 Jeep Grand Cherokee

Hi, Matt with etrailer. And today we're talking about the Yakima SightLine FX bars on top of our 2023 Jeep Grand Cherokee. Now, this can be a great option for you if you're looking for something that's gonna give you more of a clean design up on top of your roof so you can haul those longer accessories that can't fit in the back of the vehicle. And if you don't want this on all the time, you can remove this really easy. So let's check it out. And what I mean about this being more of a clean look, we just look at it right now, we don't really have anything sticking out off the side and that's gonna be 'cause of the design of this.

This is a flush rail system. So what that means is with a lot of crossbars, you'll have some overhang on the side of it. And with this not having any, that's what provides this more factory look we have today. Now that can be a pro and a con. The pro is if you have anything like roof boxes, you're gonna be able to put that extra storage on top of your roof.

Now anything like kayaks or skis, that's gonna be a little bit harder to put up here because you're gonna be limited on space. And a lot of time with that overhang, you could either tie off to that, or with skis, it's a lot easier to reach and take your skis off. This rack's gonna be comprised of two parts. The first part is gonna be the crossbars and the towers that are mounted to 'em. The second part is gonna be the fit kit that attaches your system to your roof.

So taking a closer look at the roof rack itself, or the crossbars, I mean, we're gonna have this channel at the top of it that runs all the way through, and you're gonna be able to use that for T track accessories like those roof boxes. What's nice about that is if you're not a big fan of any clamp-on accessories or if you're limited on clearance underneath here, you can just put your items into this track instead. That track's also gonna have this built-in weather strip. And I'm a fan of the built-in weather strip because the ones that don't have the one that is built in, you have to cut it down to size to accommodate whatever gear you have. This, you don't have to cut anything down, and that weather strip's gonna keep a lot of wind and debris from getting in there.

So it's gonna help it from getting all clogged up and you don't have to deal with that wind noise. Another thing that's gonna reduce wind noise too is gonna be the shape of the bar, so it's thicker in the front and thinner in the back. So that's gonna allow air to flow over this a lot better. And it's gonna also help reduce that wind noise. On the back of them, we're gonna have those towers. And if you remove that cap, you'll be able to see all the hardware that's underneath here. And if you remove that cap, we'll be able to see all the hardware that's underneath here and that's gonna be the system that helps hold this into place. That's one of the nice things about this cap is you don't have to look at any of that, and it still provides that clean look. And underneath that tower is where we're gonna have our fit kit attached to. And the fit kit really just grabs onto your vehicle's factory rails and it's gonna have this rubber section in front of it. That rubber section's gonna allow it to sit more flush, give you more of a clean look and it won't scratch anything up. And they're gonna have specific points where they attach to. So this is gonna be a fixed-mounting system. So what that exactly means is if you notice, right underneath here, we're gonna have two bolts that go through and grab your fit kit to your rails. You're gonna have some other sections you can attach that to on top of your roof, but that's gonna depend on what your needs are. Whether if you have maybe a longer box on top of here, you're probably gonna want a larger spread. Or if you have some smaller baskets, then you're gonna probably want the shorter spread. What that spread is gonna be exactly is if I measure from the front of my front crossbar and the front of my rear crossbar, that's gonna sit at 23.5 inches. So if you need something larger than that and you attach to these second points back here, that's gonna be more around the ranges of about 34 inch crossbar spread. A few other measurements I'd like to get is gonna be the overall height it's gonna add. So the tallest point are gonna be these towers. So if I measure from our rails to the top of the tower, that's gonna be about 4 inches, which is honestly pretty low profile. What I still recommend doing is taking the total height of your vehicle plus your crossbar height. If you have any other gear on top of that, account for that as well so you know what areas you can make it under. And the next measurement I want to get is gonna be the distance underneath their rails. So if I go from the center to underneath their rails, that's gonna be a little bit over 3 inches. So that might not sound like a whole lot of room, but honestly, most clamp-on accessories are gonna be able to accommodate that distance. Now if you have anything really bulky, that might be a close fit. Like I said earlier, one of the main advantages to this system is in those cases where you want to take off some of that extra height because you're not using this for the time being, you don't have the ability to do that. So we just wanna make sure we do that just to unlock it, pull this arm down or this door down, make sure you've done it on the other side. And all I have to do at this point is just lift up, and there you go. It's gonna save you a lot of space. And just the fit kit itself is only stick up a little bit over an inch and a half, which is really nice. It's gonna have that factory look to it, especially when we put this cap on top of it. (cap clicks) And that's also gonna provide a little bit more protection for this fit kit, so nothing can really get in there and clog it up. But when you are ready to put your crossbar back into place, all you have to do is take that cap on, slap it back on, and close the doors. This is also gonna have a weight capacity up to 165 pounds. Now what I do recommend doing is. That is a little bit of weight and you gotta consider your roof as well. So what I recommend doing is just checking what your roof is rated for and then going from the lowest rated component. But overall, I'm a real big fan of this system because it is really simple to put together. A lot of roof rack systems are gonna be three parts, well, this is only two parts, and it already has that factory look to it. Now if you're looking for something else that is gonna have a little bit of overhang, we have plenty of other Yakima, Rhino-Rack, or even Inno options. As far as the installation, it's pretty straightforward too. Sometimes I've had a few issues with getting those bolts into the rails, but if you're curious about what that looks like, just stay tuned and we'll walk you through the process. To begin the installation, I'm gonna lay everything out. So closest to me, we're gonna have the crossbar itself, and in front of that, we're gonna have the fit kit. Right next to that, we're gonna have the rubber pads that go underneath it and the hardware closest to you. You're gonna have a couple included tools. We're gonna have the security Allen key, and next to that, we're gonna have this Allen key with a built-in torque device. I do recommend grabbing a few tools. I recommend grabbing a trim tool. And if you don't have one, you can use a flathead screwdriver or you can find one of these on our website. I recommend grabbing something pretty small, either if you have a really tiny Allen key or something. I'll show you exactly what we're gonna use this for later. This is just something that I find is a lot easier to use though. And grabbing a tape measure so you can measure everything out. I already have the front crossbar installed, but it's gonna be the same process for both of them. The only difference is gonna be the size of your crossbars. So what I have on here right now is the small crossbar. What I have on the table in front of you, that's gonna go on the rear side, is gonna be your extra small crossbar. We're gonna start by assembling our fit kit. So there's a few things you should know when you're putting this together, it is a left and a right side. To let you know how it should look, the left side, which is gonna be your driver's side, should have this open or larger channel facing forward, and the Yakima should be facing out, as the right side should be facing out too for the Yakima and that channel facing forward as well. But to get this ready, we're gonna grab that rubber piece and we're need to match these four nibs with those four holes underneath here. So I'm just gonna line everything up and push it into place. It can be a little bit tricky to get everything lined up. I like to make sure I'm applying even pressure throughout this because if you put weird pressure on one of them and they bend in too far, then getting this in can be really tricky 'cause these nibs are a little flimsy. When everything's naturally started and it's starting to seat in there. It's not exactly flush yet, and this is pretty common. You'll probably have to deal with this too. As you can see when I push on it, it just springs back up. And you should get a little bit of that, but the mount I'm getting right now means it's not flush. And what's happening is these nibs on the side aren't going in all the way. It can be a little bit hard to see, but I've found a solution for working with these. I've put these on a few times and that's where that small tool's gonna come into hand. What I like to do is push that in to that nib, it'll have an opening behind it, and apply pressure. It'll seat in that a lot better. Once you have this all the way on, just make sure you do that for the other side too. Before we can put our fit kit up here, we need to do some prepping. And to do that, we need to remove these fasteners. So that's where that trim tool's gonna come in hand or that flathead screwdriver, whatever you have on hand. And it's really a simple process, just making sure you get the tool underneath it, kind of click out of place and it will just pop out like so. With those out of the way, I'm gonna grab that fit kit. And like I said earlier, we wanna make sure that this larger channel is facing forward. We wanna just line everything up. And the goal here is to line up these openings or these holes with the holes or points where you're gonna screw in your bolts on your rails. I'm gonna grab one of those bolts now with the washer. I like to start here on this lower hole, just pushing it through, and lining it up. Once everything's lined up, I can kind of hear it seat into place a bit. I'm gonna start screwing it on. You might have to push or pull this a little bit just to make sure everything's straight. 'Cause if it's in an angle, it's not gonna screw in correctly. It's gonna be the same thing on this other hole, this time we're using that larger channel. And what I'm doing is just pushing down, applying pressure, and sliding it into place until I feel it fall. Once it's fallen and lined up, then I can start hand tightening this. Once both bolts are holding this into place, you're gonna grab that security Allen key and tighten it down the rest of the way. You just repeat that on the other side too and make sure you remove this cap. Once we remove that cap, we can start getting our crossbar prepped up. We're gonna start by removing these end caps. Make sure you do that in both sides. And we're gonna grab this Allen key and we're gonna stick it through this hole and loosen this up some. What this is gonna do is loosen up this tower. This is gonna give you the ability to accommodate either wider roofs or the more narrow roofs. But make sure you do that on both sides. We need to open up this door now, and to do that, I need to grab either my trim tool or my flathead screwdriver. Honestly, the flathead's gonna be easier for this. We're just gonna turn this until this is pointing up now. That's gonna be in the unlock position. And now you can open up this door. When you open up that door, if you look underneath, that's gonna retract these two tabs. And when you push it in all the way, that's gonna push those tabs out. That's how that's gonna lock into place on your fit kit. And you'll notice this bolt we have at the top, what I wanna do is just make sure this is tightened to make sure it didn't get loosened up in shipment. If that clicks, you know it's tightened all the way. And what that bolt does is adjust your pitch. Now we don't have to adjust our pitch for this fit we have today, but if you're watching this for a different vehicle or if the instructions changed in any way, then you'll have to loosen that up and just angle your tower to fit whatever's gonna be the best fit for your roof. But we don't have to worry about that. And we can actually start putting this on top. Before we put this up here, we'll make sure it's in the right orientation. So we're gonna have this thicker side, we wanna make sure that's facing forward. And this thinner side that has the Yakima logo on it is facing behind us. Once we've done that, both doors are opened, everything is tightened, and areas are loosened, we can step up here and put it on top of our fit kit. It's not a bad idea for this stage to lock the other side into place so it won't move or come out. And then we can make our adjustments from over here. 'Cause you can see it's not gonna reach, but since the towers themselves are loose, they're gonna be able to slide over here and line up. And at this stage, I'm gonna lock this door down too just by pushing on it. And now I need to adjust the crossbar itself to make sure it's centered on our roof. The way you can do that really just pushing or pulling on the crossbar. And getting our measurements, so you're just gonna get your tape, measure from the center and make sure both sides are even. When everything's even or close to being even, we can grab our Allen key again and tighten that bolt up that's in this hole. And what this is gonna do is re-tighten those towers so they're not sliding around. When you hear that click, you know you're on the right path. Just make sure you do that on the other side too. And the final steps is just gonna be locking everything into place. Just making sure I turn that core so it's facing parallel with the rails and putting on this end cap. After you have the end cap on, I'm just gonna give it a shake test, make sure everything feels good. And if it does, you can load it up with whatever gear you have and go take it on the road. That just a look at the installation and some of the features of the Yakima SightLine FX bars on our 2023 Jeep Grand Cherokee. Thanks for watching.