Protege 5 Rack!!

[ogilybogil]

Hello everybody,

Just thought some of you might be interested, I know how to make a thule 430 Tracker II foot pack fit to the stock rails of a P5. It requires only a slight modifications, and I promise I will take pics in the morning, its already dark. I wish I could say I thought of it, but I didnt. Somebody with a Midnight Blue 2002 P5 with yellow painted calipers and tinted windows did. Cleanest rack on this forum, I guarantee it. Just a heads up... (spin)

 

[YelPro03]

Hello everybody,

Just thought some of you might be interested, I know how to make a thule 430 Tracker II foot pack fit to the stock rails of a P5. It requires only a slight modifications, and I promise I will take pics in the morning, its already dark. I wish I could say I thought of it, but I didnt. Somebody with a Midnight Blue 2002 P5 with yellow painted calipers and tinted windows did. Cleanest rack on this forum, I guarantee it. Just a heads up... (spin)

Great! Can't wait to see it.

 

[ZG77_OzZ]

Hello everybody,

Just thought some of you might be interested, I know how to make a thule 430 Tracker II foot pack fit to the stock rails of a P5. It requires only a slight modifications, and I promise I will take pics in the morning, its already dark. I wish I could say I thought of it, but I didnt. Somebody with a Midnight Blue 2002 P5 with yellow painted calipers and tinted windows did. Cleanest rack on this forum, I guarantee it. Just a heads up... (spin)

Any Pic's?

 

[ogilybogil]

(yippy)

Damn, not that early morning ZG77, thats early. But now, here they are...
I had to drill a larger hole in the center of the front mounting bracket, and had a friend fabricate a 1/8 thick black metal "washer" to strenghten the mount. It mounts directly to where the factory rack mounts, with the same bolt. The back is easy, just use the two outer holes just like the instructions say, but turn the metal pieces on the bottom SIDEWAYS. Thats it, then you can cut out the trim with a dremel, and it looks super clean. Maybe I should do a nice how to...
Jeff

 

[Kansei]

that looks like it's mounted pretty far back.. when you open the hatch does it hit? i know the antenna coms verry close to the spoiler and it looks like the arms go much farther back...

 

[ogilybogil]

that looks like it's mounted pretty far back.. when you open the hatch does it hit? i know the antenna coms verry close to the spoiler and it looks like the arms go much farther back...

It does hit the wheel tray ever so slightly, ive been thinking about cutting maybe 1-2 inches off. It really doesnt go that far back, i think its just an illusion from that angle. Yeah, it would be nice if it could be farther forward, but you have no options for the front mounts, since you only have a bolt to the factory rack location. The backs you can totally move,though. Until you cut the trim.

 

[Kansei]

I gotta start looking for a bike rack solution soon, and I know someone had a web page about a thule i think it was that you could install without having to take the whole rack off the 5 (just take the crossrails off) and it was mounted very far forward. It is nice to know that you can do a rack without having to mount something to the painted surfaces of the car though.

 

[Togan]

that looks good.. but i wouldnt wanna put that coz it'll slow me down

 

[atxpro5]

yeah its good to know stuff like this.. i'm planning to starting to bike here again this summer and i was gonna start looking into this as an option. otherwise i might have to tear up my interior with a bike. and thats no good.

 

[Dimitrios]

What's the price on such a setup?

I have a Yakima Cobra (upright) mounted on my (stock) rails and I am contemplating going with a hitch mount for this season as the air drag of a roof mount sucked....

Also, what's the difficutly level (time as well) of removing the rack as needed. Right now, I don't have my rack on (still off from the winter) and one of my goals is to be able to remove the rack whenever I'm not using it....I like the way she looks w/o the rack and I'm not fond of driving around the "scene" with the rack on all the time....therefore the hitch...looks good otherwise (thumbs up)

 

[Dimitrios]

Oh, one thing that I would if I were you:

Flip the bike "gutter" around (gutter = my term ). I have my bike facing "backwards" and needless to say if I had another Cobra mounted, I would be able to put the fairing so that it rested on the glass and not the paint. You'd also avoid having to worry about the hatch rubbing the back of it.

I could give a rats ass if it looks "backwards"....just get the bike to where it should be: the trail.

Riding down the highway at speed, a bike mounted on the roof isn't exactly the most aerodynamic attribute....forwards or backwards, it doesn't really matter...

I think if it were mounted "backwards", it'd look more in "place" by pushing everything forward. Besides the way that the fairing is on your setup would interfere with (at least mine) sunroof operation.

 

[ogilybogil]

Oh, one thing that I would if I were you:

Flip the bike "gutter" around (gutter = my term ). I have my bike facing "backwards" and needless to say if I had another Cobra mounted, I would be able to put the fairing so that it rested on the glass and not the paint. You'd also avoid having to worry about the hatch rubbing the back of it.

I could give a rats ass if it looks "backwards"....just get the bike to where it should be: the trail.

Riding down the highway at speed, a bike mounted on the roof isn't exactly the most aerodynamic attribute....forwards or backwards, it doesn't really matter...

I think if it were mounted "backwards", it'd look more in "place" by pushing everything forward. Besides the way that the fairing is on your setup would interfere with (at least mine) sunroof operation.

Well,
The price of my setup was about $200 for everything including a Flat Top 6 snowboard carrier and 8 lock cores to go with it. However, I work at a shop and have access to below-wholesale prices. It would cost retail around 200-250 dollars for the base rack (crossbars, towers and locks), then about 125 for every bike carrier, and then about 125 more for the ski rack. Plus 50 for the fairing.

As for mounting it backwards...(moon)
I think it looks better like this. They always look funny as hell to me backwards, but it would solve the problems of the rack hitting. But it would center it better as well... Someday I may try it and see how it looks. But for now... it stays forward. Im lazy.

And by difficulty level of removing the rack, I will assume you mean the aftermarket rack. Well, it takes about 1 minute and I did it myself.
Those four towers have a lock and button. Unluck the button, and push it in and the tower is released. Do this to all four sides, lift up the rack in one piece (i left the bike carriers and fairing attached) or in two pieces if you have just the bars on. Looks nice with just the bars, too.
Jeff

 

[Dimitrios]

Ah, I see the lock button. Thanks for the follow up.

As for the backwards thing, yeah, they look funny; but I don't give a rats ass about other people's opinions anyway when it comes to such matters.....maybe it's because I care about solutions more than "aesthetics" in places like that...

 

[mtnbiker26]

There will probably be some issues with snowboards hitting the wing when the hatch is open. I had that problem when I tried using the factory rack. You might have more clearance having the feet up on the factory track the way that you do.

Here's how I did mine: http://home.comcast.net/~gtolley/rack.htm

 

[ogilybogil]

There will probably be some issues with snowboards hitting the wing when the hatch is open. I had that problem when I tried using the factory rack. You might have more clearance having the feet up on the factory track the way that you do.

Here's how I did mine: http://home.comcast.net/~gtolley/rack.htm

Yeah, in some cases with larger boards (over 160cm) they just barely scrape the wing. If you turn the board p-tex down, (basically right side up) the end wont hit. But if you have two snowboards base to base, the bottom one will scrape slightly. The best solution i can think of is to cut out a large square plastic/vinyl kinda thing to go over the spoiler to keep it from scraping the paint.
Jeff

 

[redwagon02]

That looks pretty good.

 

[P-Funk!]

Yes! Please do a detailed how-to with pics/part numbers! This solves my problem of having the 'stock' rack 'tied up' with the [somewhat permanent] kayak racks...

I could have kayaks or bikes or nothing depending on my mood... sweet.

Thanks!