willo

I scored a TJ Garvin Wilderness rack this weekend, along with a bonus hi-lift for a song.
The TJ rack is the same size as the unit made for the 2 door JK - 72x54. From cursory photo examination, it appears that Garvin uses the same rack with different legs.

on the JKU, the rack is something like 96 inches vs my 72.
I figure I have a couple of options here:

1) I could redrill the windshield mounts then build an extension on the rack. Follow that with modifying the rear mounts. I'm concerned about building enough strength there. It may be easier to make a bolt in extension for the front, but then I loose the extra strength of the base bars.

2) Buy a rhino rack base for my JKU, then fab mounting brackets between the rhino basees (6 of them) and the garvin rack.

I'm leaning toward the second option. I can mount the rack for access to the freedom panels and actually hold more weight up there with the rhino base. Anyone got a better plan? I really like not having the extra metal bars and I think this will be a very cool custom setup. I do plan to add an ARB awning to the side in the future. Otherwise, we'll put boats or skis up there.

saharaharry

I had this rack on my 06 Rubicon Unlimited. The rack came in 2 sizes as far as the base is concerned. In the rear, it attached behind the tail lites. Is yours like this? The new ones attach either at the bumper or to the frame. The tail lite method was a lot simpler. I used to carry on average around 200 lbs of gear without an issue.

willo

This one was hinged at the rear bumper with tail light mounts to reinforce. I let the guy keep the bumper mounts since he'd have to pull the body mount bolts and I was going to have to customize it anyway.

saharaharry

I never used the bumper mounts on mine. Does the rack actually fit your Jeep? Reason being, I have been toying with the same idea of a rack for my 15 JK. I do not like the rear mounting system on the majority of the racks out there today. I guess they do it for roof removal clearance, but I never take the roof off. Are the dimensions the same? Also is this rack of your from a TJ or LJ?

willo

I watched a video on installing the backbone on the 4 door.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TecUukkoVzc The back two brackets are reinforced by a steel surround bracket that goes down to the hard top mounting bolts. The front set actually braces against the roll bar. That explains the 800lb static load rating.

There's a 20% off deal going on right now, so I ordered the backbone system. I will probably fabricate my own mounting feet from mild steel rather than spend another $170 just for feet.

willo

I made brackets for this today!


Since I had the top off to finish up the rhino base install, I decided to test fit and got motivated.

I ended up picking up some 3/16 2x2 steel angle and cutting out 6 3" pieces. Then I cut up the old garvin rear mounting legs to create 6 6" 1x1 square steel tubes.
After some grinding and welding I ended up with some simple brackets. The Garvin bolts to these and the brackets bolt to the now installed rhino rack mounts.


This is the front mount. I cut up some old bike inner tube to make pads to sit between the tube stock and the rhino rack mounts. The Rhino rack mounts don't sit flat up top, but are slightly angled outward. This is not a huge deal as the 6 inches of square tube will rest at a small angle to the rhino rack. The padding helps things out a bit.
The welds aren't pretty but have good penetration. I'm confident of the strength but will point out that I used a 110v welder with flux core wire. One of these days I'll get a TIG.

The offset is to align the two cross bars of the rack with the bracket. This allowed me to use the original U bracket up top (not shown) to hold the rack down. It looks good.


The middle bracket took some creativity. I ended up cutting down the original side brackets from the garven to create clamps. (Longer bolt will be acquired tomorrow.)

So, front and rear brackets used stock garvin bolts and upper u brackets. The middle uses these cut down guys to create a clamp. Should be pretty stout.

My only real complaint is the very small bolt that goes into each rhino rack bracket. It's less than 1/4 inch (Metric M10). I used grade 8 fasteners from my ever handy metric assortment pack. I will probably use some blue locktite for final installation.

willo

Got the top back on today (by myself and no damage!)

Got to looking at the rack and decided that it's got enough rub spots and various light rust spots that I'm going to clean it up and coat it with duplicolor bed liner to match the rest of my jeep. I'm almost tempted to get a quote at linex. I've had good luck sanding powdercoat and applying this coating. I knocked off some loose powdercoat and wire brushed everything I could get to and then unbolted the rack. I'm going to do my usual random orbit sander and then refinish it. After that, I'm thinking all new stainless steel hardware. The bolts have held up pretty well, but there was a bit of rust on them at the contact points. Since I'm refinishing, I'm going to add some brackets for some lights and work out a backup camera mount.

It'll probably be another week or two before I get everything completed.