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These 4-5/16" roof-rack legs are designed to mount on your vehicle's factory rain gutters with included brackets and hardware. The legs work with 2 Rhino-Rack Heavy-Duty or Aero crossbar (sold separately). Security bolts included.
Features:
Specs:
Videos are provided as a guide only. Refer to manufacturer installation instructions and specs for complete information.
Carla: Hey everyone. Carla here with etrailer.com. Today, we're going to be taking a look at the Rhino-Rack gutter mount Aero Vortex bar roof rack system on our 2028 Jeep Wrangler unlimited. So this is a really good option for a roof rack if, for example, you already have Vortex bars from another vehicle that happened to match the same length that you need on the Jeep, and you want to adjust them to be able to use on your hard top on your Jeep. We have our gutter mount feet, our adapter kit to be able to use those bars, and it's a very quiet aerodynamic roof rack system that will allow you to carry a kayak or maybe a couple paddleboards or surfboards. So it's a good option for that.So right here, we can take a closer look at our gutter mount attachment.
We have a clamp that goes on the outside. You can see right down here, grabs onto the gutter and on the inside, we've got our leg with our rubberized piece on the inside as well, so making a really tight connection right here. These two bolts are used to tighten it down or you can undo them to remove it. So it's very easily removable. You can use it as a temporary roof rack if you don't always want to have the roof rack on your top.
Right up here, we've got our Vortex Aero bars. These for the Jeep are going to be 59 inches long and they are going to be aluminum. So they're very lightweight and their shape is going to make sure that you get the best aerodynamics when it comes to noise or wind resistance. Right out here, we've got our end cap. It does come with a little plastic lock or tool so you can remove it and you can gain access to the T-track.So you can definitely use your T-track mounted accessories to go on top as well as your clamp-on accessories.
One of the good things about this roof rack is that you can simply remove that end cap and attach your accessories. Some other roof racks may not have that option where you have to remove the actual foot before you do so. We can just use our tool to lock it back in place. So right underneath here, you can see this opening or this track. It's so you can slide the T-bolt and slide your gutter foot right here across.
You will get a strip that will cover this up to make sure that there's no wind that can get underneath or cause any noise or anything like that.All right. So now we'll go over a couple of measurements that you're going to find useful. For example, if you are wondering if you are going to be able to drive this into your garage, you're probably wondering how much height we're adding. So I'm going to measure from right here, which is the top of the race portion of our hard top up to the top of the bar. We're right at about three and a half inches from here to here. Now from the bottom of the bar to the top of our top, it's going to be right at about two and a half inches actually. So that's about how much space you're going to have in between so that you can know that your clamp-on accessories are going to have plenty of room to go on there.One thing to keep in mind is the capacity of the bars. Normally these are 165 pound capacity bars, but because we are putting them on the hard top on our Jeep, we are going to be limited to 88 pounds. That is regardless of whether you use a two bar system or three bars, because you can actually add a third bar to this rack, but it's going to be 88 pounds no matter what.All right, so now that I've told you a little bit more about the details of this roof rack, we'll go ahead and show you how to get it installed. All right. So with the parts on the table, we've got our leg, rain gutter leg, and our adapter kit. The adapter kit is going to allow us to use the rain gutter leg on our Aero Vortex bar. I'll show you, even though this will fit under here, you can see how this doesn't sit into these ridges. So there's a potential for moving parts and it's just not going to sit flush. So the adapter is going to allow you to use this spacer. So we'll remove the original hardware and we'll take this spacer, set it up top. The shorter portion goes towards the end right here, towards the inside. We'll use our bolt, our lock washer, set that underneath.We'll use our block right here, the gold block underneath in between, just like that. Then we'll use the silver one to go on top and you just want to start threading it and then we'll go ahead and fix it to our bars. Just insert that block in the channel underneath and slide it on. All right. I'm just going to go ahead and tighten this by hand, but I still need it to move so that when we go up there, we can adjust them. All right, we'll go ahead and put our end cap back on so this doesn't come out. All right. Don't forget to put the rubber piece in between right here. This is where it goes, to protect the rain gutter. This inside here is already rubberized.All right. Now we can go ahead and throw it up. We'll set one side over there. We'll open this up and make sure that one piece goes inside of the rain gutter and the outside clamp grabs on nice and tight like that. So I'll go to the other side and repeat the same process. All right. So you can see, we need to lift this up and move our . All right. Move the leg further in so we can do the same thing on this side, making sure that we are grabbing on, so let's go ahead and actually push it out a little bit. Just like that. At this point, we want to go to the front of the vehicle. Let's make sure that this sits flush. We'll go to on the front of the vehicle and take a look at the overhang and make sure. We can also use a tape measure to make sure that the overhang is the same on both sides.All right. So we've got him positioned to where the overhang on each one is right at about an inch and seven eighths, and these are the measurements for the specific Jeep today. Once they're there, then we can go ahead and tighten. I'm using a 10 millimeter wrench underneath here to finish tightening the bolt. Always refer to the instructions for the specific torque specs on the roof rack. There we go.Next step would then be to come down here and use the included tool. Go ahead and tighten down these bolts. That is just going to make sure that this tightens against the leg to really grab onto this rain gutter. We'll go ahead, alternate. Okay. We'll repeat the same process on the other side. All right. So now that we've got them positioned there and tightened all the way down, we do want to double-check that our gutter mount feet are going to be on the same spot on both sides of the roof. So when I'm measuring here and it looks like I've got it around the same size over there, and you really can measure anywhere on the roof here. So I'll just make sure.We got 20 up here and I'll go over here and double check. So looks like we've got a perfect fit there, but if you do find that your measurements are off by a little bit, you can always go back, unscrew these bolts and adjust it as needed. So with our bars completely installed, we can go ahead and give it a good shake. You can see how the entire car is just moving. They're not going to go anywhere. So that just about does it for our look at the Rhino-Rack gutter mount roof rack system with Aero bars on our 2020 Jeep Wrangler.
Average Customer Rating: 4.6 out of 5 stars (5 Customer Reviews)
These 4-5/16" roof-rack legs are designed to mount on your vehicle's factory rain gutters with included brackets and hardware. The legs work with 2 Rhino-Rack Heavy-Duty or Aero crossbar (sold separately). Security bolts included.
My vehicle was a Jeep Gladiator. The feet worked, but the part that clamps to the gutter could be improved. The clamps pull at an angle to the gutter instead of flat. They had a tendency to pull out. They needed adjustment, in my opinion, as I thought they could work themselves off. I had an aero bar and kayak carriers attached to the feet.
Great product and easy install. Love it.
Strong dependable fits nice
sturdy and relatively easy to install
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