Rhino-Rack Heavy-Duty Roof Rack Crossbars - Black - 59" Long - Qty 2

Video Transcript for Rhino-Rack Heavy-Duty Roof Rack Crossbars Installation - 2020 Jeep Gladiator

Hey everybody, welcome to etrailer.com. I'm Bobby, and today we're taking a look, at the Rhino Rack HD Crossbar System here on our 2020 Jeep Gladiator. So these guys are going to be a pretty decent way of starting getting some of your accessories here on the roof of your Gladiator. Now again, we are gonna have our HD bars here. So, gonna be a little bit different than more of your traditional bars. What that means for us a little bit taller height here, that can start impacting a lot of accessories out there.

And a couple of things I'm gonna get out of the gate here, we do have AC channels slots. So these guys are actually a little bit wider, and a little beefier, than your normal T slot attachments. So not all T-slot attachments are gonna work for this, predominantly your Rhino-Racks C slot heavy duty accessories, are gonna be trying to find actually put on this system. So, it is gonna be a little more limited, than you might be used to, on a variety of different racks. However, it is gonna have a very nice weight capacity.

In fact, I think these guys almost have an indefinite capacity, and really what's gonna be holding us in place though is gonna be our roof capacity here on our Jeep Gladiator. Now, I wasn't able to find anything too definitive. However, I did find that the Jeep Wrangler had about 150 pounds of weight capacity, with their same hard top here. So, in my mind I just stick to safe with that 150 pounds. Now that is a dynamic load that is when you are moving.

So, later on you can throw a little bit more heavier stuff on there, like a tent or something like that and crawling in. However, in that regards, I will look at something like a ladder rack system like you're seeing here on the back of our Gladiator, like the overhaul here, really like how this system works. We can get a bed rack position, grill it up to our ladder rack, or there's a variety of other better rack options out there. And personally, that's where I would look at for the Gladiator system overall, especially that low weight roof capacity. However, it's still gonna be a very nice way of getting a lot of this cargo out of here.

I think a lot of people like putting a gas can, some dry bags up on top, really can't sleep on the things you can do, to start just getting it a little bit more comfort inside your Gladiator. So our bars here are gonna be made of aluminum, making them pretty lightweight and easy to get on our roof, but they are actually very, very well-made. Let me see if I can get this end cap here for you guys. All I gotta do, pop that out like so, and we can kind of see our construction in here. So, that aluminum on the under side there, still having an nice inch protrusion. That's given us a lot of support, allowing us to carry all our heavy duty accessories. Now at the top, they're filling in our C channel. You are seeing that rubber stripping. Now that actually is pretty nice. I think that's gonna do a great job of protecting the top of our bars, keeping that black powder coat finish nice and pretty for ourselves, giving us a little bit of contact for some of our clamp on accessories. But to then in, like I said, it is a little bit taller. So clamp on accessories probably gonna have a harder time with this, and you are gonna probably have to actually cut this strip, to get it to kind of cut the size for your C channel accessories that you get in here. And talking to that, we do have our underside channel here as well, where our heavy duty mounting towers actually get into. To that end now as well, we're gonna have that open channel there. And I really think it's gonna generate a lot of whistling, as we start reaching those higher miles per hour. It's just basically, it's gonna be, generating that auditory noise which is not gonna be very fun. I wish that it actually came with a blocker, to kind of shorten that up. Now of course, we're gonna be able to find that with a variety for aftermarket applications. I know Ryan Rack, has a couple capabilities of doing that. However, I only think they offer you that vortex rubber stripping. So, that's definitely a failure in my mind. I think we're gonna hear a whistle, and that can definitely be a little annoying. Well, I wonder to hop up on here and see how we're actually interacting with the roof of our Gladiator. You can see here where our bar is more towards the middle of our Gladiator. We definitely gonna have a very shallow clearance, only about an inch and an eighth there, to the underside. Let's look at the very top really right under three inches of added height. So that's not the worst I've ever seen, like that it's still nice and low profile, making this a lot easier to pull through the garage or near this pesky drive-throughs that we're probably gonna be encountering. Well now that we have a pretty good idea of how it's interacting with our Gladiator, why don't see how we can actually get it on. To begin your installation, all you wanna do is take your bars. First things first, we can go ahead and actually set in our top rubber strip here. Now, how you do that I like to just set it in place here, and then just start pinning in one side, and then you kind of work it all the way down. So just give yourself a little patience, with the fingers a little bit, get that set in place. Once you've done that, we need to take our towers here, we are gonna have our attachment point. We might need to loosen this up a little bit out of the box, but then what we need to do is simply take it. It can be helpful to reverse your bars, to make it a little easier for you to see. I'm gonna try and bounce it here just so you guys can give get a look, and I simply slot that right on. Now, if you want it at this point, you can tighten this up. You are gonna need a five eight inch wrench, or socket set to get that tightened. I'll actually leave it pretty loose here, all I'm gonna do, take my little end cap here, set that back in place, to hopefully prevent that from falling out. Now I will say, this guys can actually just be set in place here and they can work themselves out. So be a little careful, just for that how that spacing works on that bottom channel, they can work themselves out, but then we simply wanna take this and begin to set it on top of our roof. With our bar in hand, we simply lock it across our roof, gently set it down on the other side, and then begin to set in our foot pad. To do that, we are gonna need our included tool, and we need to back off these set screws right here. So when backing this off with your included tool, we don't need to go all the way, just enough to actually get our pad around here. Do take note though that we have our little plate on the outside here. On the inside, some of it we put on our rubber pad as well. Now, a lot of times it will come pre-installed but sometimes it can fall out. Let's do a good job of actually protecting our gutter. Now, the question is though, is this set exactly where I want it Well actually probably not. And why that is, we need to start getting a measurement from our front bars to our rear bars. Now, this is where it is gonna be a little arbitrary and kind of up to you guys. Depending on our accessories, we're gonna have a different minimum and maximum crossbar requirements. For myself, I just took it out 12 inches here from the center of my here on my Gladiator. So get out for my front bar and just set it in place here. Now I wanna go ahead and give myself at least 24 inches. I'm probably gonna go for at least 25 or 26, that way I have that distance I need for a variety of different accessories. So, let's grab our handy-dandy tape measures, and get to measure. So I've set my bars here about 26 inches from themselves, center on center. That's gonna be excellent for the accessories that we're gonna be throwing on here later. Again can be a little different home and that's gonna be okay. That's why I like this system 'cause we can make it versatile to what we need at home. Now of course I repeated that process on the other side, and now it's time to actually tighten down our bars. Now one thing I like about that, we can actually secure our points and then tighten our bars. Now as it stands, I've gotten my front bar here, nice and tightened down. As you guys can see, it can't shift. What we are gonna need to do, let us grab ourselves a five inch ratcheting wrench or socket set, or of course regular wrench. I just think this is the easiest way to go. And you need to hop up on here. There's gonna be a little bolt to here on the inside. And once we've just double-checked our overhang on either side, and again, it's about a difference of 1/2 inch. We just need to tighten this up, so we can secure this to our roof. Of course repeat that process on the rest of your foot pads. But other than that, we're nice and installed, ready for some accessories on our roof. Well, as you guys saw that installed really doesn't take too much time. That is one thing I like about this system. If you guys are a big fan of how this mounting system works personally, I think our HD bars are just a little overkill here on our Gladiator. Just because we're not really gonna have the weight capacity on our roof, to actually even handle the weight capacity there are bars could bring us up. They are gonna be a little overkill. Now does that mean we can't throw them on a variety of other vehicles in the family No, that can be very nice. If you do find yourself having those heavier systems, wanting that high weight capacity, that's gonna be excellent. But to that regards, I wouldn't really just look at something like the Rhino Rack vortex crossbars system. Basically just giving you an aerial bar in a more traditional style, which is gonna have a little bit more adaptability towards your T-slot attachments, and is gonna have a T-slot rather than a C channel, which is already kind of limiting us, on the accessories we can actually throw on this bar. But again, if you're really looking for something that looks pretty nice and stylish with the square bars, they do look good, I just think you're gonna have a little harder time of getting a variety of accessories on this bar. Otherwise though guys, I think that about does it for our look here today at the Rhino Rack HD crossbar system here, on our 2020 Jeep Gladiator, I'm Bobby, thanks for watching..