Roof Racks

[shaferbm]

That rack looks stellar, not to mention the functionality.

[straight6pwr]

love the boards. hoping to do that with my touring, as the yakima basket case metal basket is far too small for the roof.

[nickflic3]

Now that's cool

[CW325]

Wow. :up: :up:

[CubbyChowder]

Well here is the finished product. Happy with how it turned out.

I welded on a few hooks throughout the rack to secure tie downs and painted the whole frame and carriage bolt heads black. I also stained the wood, and it's a bit darker now.




Then it was time for final assembly!




And here's where the e30 sits currently:

[CubbyChowder]

Keep us posted.

(I always read your username as ChubbyChowder, then proceed to picture heavy-set women eating giant bowls of clam chowder.)

hahaha hilarious, I actually think more people see "chubby" than "cubby". I've had so many people say they always thought it said ChubbyChowder.

[Albuquerque30]

Keep us posted.

(I always read your username as ChubbyChowder, then proceed to picture heavy-set women eating giant bowls of clam chowder.)

[CubbyChowder]

Thanks guys! Not fully done yet. Still needs a day's worth of work and it'll be complete.

[Albuquerque30]

Awesome rack! ;) I love how it came out.

[lambo]

^wow nice work!

+1

That is awesome!

[CW325]

^wow nice work!

[CubbyChowder]

Here is my roof rack project which I started yesterday. Haven't quite finished it yet, but it's getting there.

I wanted one bike tray, and have the rest of the rack be a wooden platform to haul stuff around on considering the e30 isn't really the most spacious car, especially since the seats don't fold down.

So I went to my local metal supply shop, got 20ft. of 1"x1" metal tubing, had them cut it into four 5' pieces and headed up to my dads.

From there, I made some measurements, cut some stuff, welded stuff together, ground some welds down on the surface and ended up with this frame. It's kind of hard to tell in the pictures, but the legs are a bit longer on one side to make room for the bike tray:




So this is how it sits with the bike tray installed:





Made a Home Depot run:




Spent the next few hours making precise measurements so everything is proportional, drilling into the wood, and drilling into the metal on my kitchen floor with shitty drill bits. Drilling through the metal sucked and I'm so happy it's over...



And here's where I'm at right now. I'm staining the wood a dark walnut color and painting the metal frame and carriage bolt heads black so everything goes together nicely. I'm really happy with how it's turning out. I'll probably weld on a couple hooks throughout the frame to attach tie downs/bungee straps etc.

[mcskibadee1]

[DrJosh]

Yakima rain gutters

[CubbyChowder]

This is a crappy iPhone pic, but this is my current setup which isn't complete yet.

It's the cheap eBay roof rack with Thule bike trays. No fairing yet. I plan on eventually redesigning the whole rack by building a custom frame out of metal tubing and using just one bike tray and making a wood platform on the rest of the rack to haul stuff around. I'll be reinforcing the mounts just for structural integrity. I actually really like the towers of this eBay rack, mounts perfectly to the e30 rails and feels very sturdy once tight. Only downside is no locks, but you could figure out a way to at least make it harder to steal.