Landing Pad 6 for Yakima SkyLine and Control Towers for Fiberglass Roofs - Qty 2

Video Transcript for Yakima Landing Pad 6 Installation - 1984 Volkswagen Vanagon

Andy: Hello everyone, Andy here with etrailer.com. Today we're taking a look at the installation of our Landing Pad 6 on a Volkswagen Vanagon. Looking at our Landing Pad 6 installed now, we have them paired with the SkyLine Towers. If you needed to remove the lock and load tray here, or let's say we had some bars that are mounted to the top of our camper shell, or on top of our van as seen here, we can just go ahead and push down on the pressure on each side of the tower here. That is what will allow you to move, and install, and re-install your tray or your bars that you have mounted on the top. If you actually aren't using your lock and load tray and you want a cleaner, simpler look with your Leap Pad 6, there are the included covers, and we can just snap that in place, and it gives us a nice fit and finish.As for the installation on this, it did seem like at first it was going to be a pretty intensive task, but I found that it really overall wasn't that bad.

You will need a couple extra set of hands because you have to get everything loaded, mocked up, marked, loaded off, drilled, and then mounted back up and everything secured down. Overall, I do think it is a great item. Installation really wasn't that bad. Just have those extra set of hands. You also want to make sure that the air deflector here is placed towards the front, that way you don't have to shift anything while it's on top of the vehicle.Now with our tray on the roof, before we actually get our mounting brackets and everything settled up there, you do need to assemble them.

Today we are using the SkyLine Towers with our SL adapter plate that is going to be attached to the tray. Also, we are using the Landing Pad 6. For our assembly, we have our tray mounting plate with our tower and adapter plate as well. You want to attach this to our SL adapter plate using the Loctited bolts that are provided. We are just going to go ahead and get those lined up and just kind of finger tighten them down.There is a provided Allen key that you can use to tighten those.

Now these, you want to make sure are pretty secure. This is what is going to hold that tray down solid. From there, we are going to use our brackets here. Now with this hardware, it just will place into the middle of the slot. You can twist it and you'll go ahead and set that bracket in.

Now do not tighten these down yet, because once we get onto the top of the vehicle, we can make those adjustments on where exactly we want our tray to be placed. We have our tile up here just for added protection in case there is any shifting of the tray. Also, I went ahead and took a couple little pieces of cardboard that we're going to use whenever we set the tray down onto the landing pad and the roof.From here, you want to take your assembly and lift up the corner. I found it easiest for those sliding mounting pieces that are going to fit in the tray, to move them as wide as you can. From here, you can fit them into those slots and move your piece of cardboard underneath the landing pad. There we go. Since this roof has a pop-up option, what I'm going to do is, I have everything mocked up, and I've measured from the channels and the roll edge on all sides to make sure that everything is symmetrical. It's going to be a little bit more on the difficult side to drill with our tray set up like this, so I also want to make sure that where I have marked in the back, that clears with the bed or any other type of obstruction that might happen when the top is folded down in this position.Instead of making permanent marks on the roof, if I have to make any adjustments, I have used a dry erase marker. That way, once we're done with the installation drawing, we'll just wipe it away cleanly, and it's nothing that's permanent that's going to stay on our roof. We did pull the tray back off of the vehicle, just to make sure that our marks are going to be correct. We brought our landing pad up to the top in order to Mark our centering holes before we start drilling. We just wanted to make sure that the measurement from hole to hole on both the left and the right, front, and the rear all match symmetrically, and we're good to go. What we're going to go ahead and do is use a punch just to make it a little easier for that first small drill bit to make that first indention on there, and one there.Also, I want to make a note that the roof of this top does have a fabric style lining to it, so you want to start with the smallest drill bit you can find, that way you don't rip through that lining that's going to be there. Whenever we get that first couple holes drilled, we're going to make a small incision, so it's kind of an X pattern to make it easier to feed our bolts through that fabric material. Now that we have our holes punched, we are going to go ahead and start to drill. I'm going to use the smallest bit possible right now, just to get that first hole started, and we'll slowly stagger our way up to a larger bit that will fit our hardware a little bit better. Also, I just want to be aware of that material lining that's on the inside of the roof. Let's go ahead and get started. As I'm doing this, I'm not really pressing very hard, I just want to use the weight of the drill.This is just a first initial hole. I definitely don't want to pull that material way underneath the inside of the ceiling. Now that we have our holes drilled, I'm going to go ahead and take a little bit of window cleaner and wipe away my dry erase markings, and the markings I used for the hole positions. Now that we have our first hole drilled, let's go ahead and go to a slightly bigger drill bit. Using that first hole as our pilot hole, slowly start your second process. I found it easiest to go a little bit on the slower side. That way, if you are on a painted surface, you don't cause any major chips or cracks in that paint.There we go, we made that last hole. Then we'll move to this one. We're going to slowly work our way up with those drill bits. Although the instructions state to use a 1/4th inch drill bit, we found it best to use a 3/16th. It fits our hardware a lot more snug than using that 1/4th. Now that you have your holes completed and drilled, you're going to grab your pad and the hardware that's included, along with the nut and knob. What you need to do first, in that same package is going to be a little tube of RTV sealer. You're going to make just a nice bead circle around that hole that was both on the rear and the front. What I have done also, was put a little bit of RTV around the thread portion as well, once I get my bolts through the mounting pad. I'm going to go ahead and put this bead of RTV around our holes that are drilled.I'm going to go ahead and put my hardware through like so, and hold onto this as I'm doing the front one. We're just going to finish up this, and that's going to do it for the RTV around our drilled holes. Here, I'm just going to put a couple of little beads on the base of the bolts. This is just going to add a little bit of extra protection in case we didn't make a solid enough bead around our holes. This will kind of help that main hole through the pad as well. So with the provided Allen key, I'm going to go ahead and take our nut and knobs and hand them to our extra set of hands inside the vehicle. I'm going to go ahead and lower the bolts into the holes now with us. Using that tighter fit of a drill bit, our hardware is about perfect and won't have much movement, but you may need to just kind of start those threads. Once those are started, you can start to crank down, and have your extra set of hands hold that knob tight as you slowly crank down.Go ahead and tighten this rear one down. there it goes. Start it through our holes that we drilled. That knob can be a little bit on the tighter side, so it might take a little bit extra effort, but you will feel a point to where it stops spinning from inside the vehicle. Can you feel it spin Nope. Andy: From there, I'm just going to make a half rotation and move back to the front, and we should be good to go from there. same thing. Now that we have that last one tightened down, you just want to make sure everything's secure. As you can see, we have completed the other three. What I'm thinking is going to be the easiest way to get the tray on there. If this was mounted to a tray, we're kind of worried about finding where it really needs to mount. I don't want to scratch or dent the roof.What I'm going to go ahead and do is leave these brackets loose, and we're just going to go ahead and attach this. From this point, we'll be able to lift the tray onto the top end, able to set it, and then we can make our adjustments and tighten things from there. As we are going around one at a time, making sure that our clamps are secure, we first measured some distances in order to get everything kind of squared up and lined up. You will want to check the tensioner as far as the leveling of the track, and you'll take your provided Yakima tool. There is a silver Allen key bolt in here, and you'll just make sure that that is torqued. You'll hear it, click, then you can put your clamp back and secure that. From that point, we are going to double check the clamps up here and make sure we get this secured down.There is one more bolt I want to take a look at, it's the Allen key on our adapter plates. I just want to make sure that that is secured as well, on the front and the rear. That was a look at the installation of the Yakima Landing Pad 6 on our 1984 Volkswagen Vanagon.