traveler57

Yes, same answer as Phantasm.

with the factory bumper the ends of the bumper are now "hanging a bit loose" but I never need to step on them any way. I have side rock rails to stand on to help reach the canoe/kayak/snowboard, etc.
from the sides. and as he said, having the rack to hold on to makes it very simple to just stand on the tires. and if I really needed access from the back, I would just stand on the hitch. not a big deal.

The idea I have is, if I keep the factory bumper long term, I might just put a pipe "collar/flange" of some type onto each rear bracket, just below the bumper and then the plastic bumper would have something solid to rest on. then giving the plastic bumper the strength to stand on.

My better idea is to have my friend weld up a ladder or ladder rungs to give it a look (and function) like the Gobi rack design.


my 2 cents.

Phantasm

So All this talk convinced me to do something about the weak bumper ends... I decided to use these standard chainlink fence gate hinge hangers from Home Depot:


they are cheap at $4, are strong and simple in design, have extra surface area built in to the clamp, and are built to be outside. They are sized to 2 3/8" pipe which made it easy to get on but I really had to crank them to close them up.

I slipped it over the tube with the hinge pin facing down and installed a 2.5" carriage bolt with a lock washer and nut. I mostly used a ratcheting box wrench (craftsmen tool) to tighten it up and a standard open end wrench to finish it up. Very tight getting tools in there and working but it now holds my weight when I stand on it and won't slip down any more.
This is the installed shot looking straight up:

Ceruzziracing

Well, I ordered mine the other day. Today I walk out and there's one long FedEx box behind my Jeep! Got it two days after they processed my order! But wait, I know there's supposed to be two boxes from all the posts I've seen and sure enough, the box is labeled from N-Dure as box 1 of 2. Well, one hour on the phone with JC Whitney brainless female (no offense to our more educated sisters) and she says yup, just supposed to be in one box. That's all you get, everything else is a seperate item. I have a brief meltdown on the phone, even offer to photograph and email her the pic of the manufacturers label. She finally agrees to "write a ticket" which I gather is an inquiry with god knows who. She says the shipping label with FedEx shows the package to be 80 something lbs. I inform her that the FedEx label on my box shows 47.5lbs and that I'm aware the total weight should be close to 145lbs. She says, "oh, maybe some of the product wasn't packed in the box.....no room for anything else I tell her. Man, this is why I hate Internet shopping, no one to actually grab around the throat and shake lol. I guess we'll see what happens, said it will take 48hrs to process. I'm dreading receiving box 1 of 2 again, instead of 2 of 2. It took about half a dozen explanations to her of what was missing and she still had it screwed up when she read me back her notes.

On a positive note, it was packaged superbly, box was actually intact when it arrived (that in and of itself was amazing), and the quality of the product looks outstanding. Heavy wall tubes, decent welds and no bare spots in the powder coating. Total cost was $280 with free shipping. Will update as things progress. Sounds like I'm the first to only get the one box :-(

traveler57

Phantasm- thanks for your effort. Clearly I am a bit lazy and the tight space was stopping me a bit. I did try placing some hose clamps, but they clearly will not do the job.

Sounds like you found a good solution. Wandering the aisles at the hardware store seems to be a common thing for jeep owners to find answers to our problems.

Great job!!!

Ceruzziracing

Well, second box showed up today. There's no way that it could have gotten shipped on a Sunday and arrived, haven't heard back for JCW, wonder how that's going to play out. At least it's all here now.

traveler57

Sounds like it was just a simple issue with UPS and the 2 packages just got separated along the way from the shipment point to your house. It does happen.

Good luck with your install.

Ceruzziracing

Yeah, that was first thing both myself and the girl at JCW checked. Wa shipped via FedEx, one box initially. Oh well, just glad I didn't have to battle any more to make it right. Everything was extremely well packed, I'm impressed. Got light bars wired up tonight, rack goes on tomorrow.

uns3r

I hope people still check this thread because I have a couple questions about this. It is a N-Dure rack I am looking at and can get it for $259.46.
1) How well is it holding up after having it for a while?
2) Can you take off the hard top while this is on? What about the two front panels?
3) I have the two door and was wondering how do you know which one is for which?
4) How much are people liking it?
5) Anything I should be aware about?

Thanks and hope to hear back from someone!

traveler57

I have the body armor version of this same rack.

mine is working perfectly. Solid, no rattles, and I love it.
I don't have their "included" cross bars, as I have used Thule bars instead. this makes them easy to move forward or aft, and they even come off in 1 minute. Having cross bars that can be placed anywhere on the rack, means that I can move them for kayaks, canoes, skis, snowboards, etc. Very nice to have this ability.

this means that yes, the hard top comes off easily. I lift mine with a hoist in the garage/roof. Softtop goes up and down also. Yes, of course the front panels come out. check just a few posts ago, and you see where others just store the removed panels on the rack itself. I will be doing this same thing when the winter is over here. Yes, I got mine around the same low price. no question that it is worth the money for what you get.

and if you simply see all posts from Phantasm (and his fan base) you will see that this rack mounts even when using stock rear bumper. and mounting to the frame in the back rather than the sheet metal is a huge plus for me. I carry 2 kayaks and a canoe every weekend, and they stay solid even in cross winds. but then again I am a huge fan of Thule racks and all their accessories.

The only thing that is not perfect is that we all had to do a bit of "hole alignment" when mounting the pieces. but this is not really the rack's fault, but an issue that no two jeeps are built exactly the same.....LOL
I had this problem with anything that I attached to my frame including Front bumper, rock rails, etc.

Please just search again here and on other forums and on Google and will find hundreds of happy users.

Ceruzziracing

I have an '07 two door, no rear bumper, just Evo D-ring inserts. The rack is made of solid, heavy wall steel. I, unlike others, had absolutely zero issues with hole alignment. I used a single layer of quality electrical tape on each male end and the 1 7/8 O.D. o-rings, as suggested in earlier posts. I have the three cross bars installed, the included hardware for them is worthless, six Allen head screws and nylocks fixed that issue. You can take the hard top off with these in place by lifting hard top up a couple inches and then straight back. Gotta juggle a bit with your hands to get past rear uprights for rack, but definitely doable. Freedom panels are no problem. Most time consuming is running the lighting wires, as stated numerous times.

Something not too many have mentioned is the increased noise. If I hadn't installed this myself, I would have sworn my front differential/axle was coming apart. The noise at 40mph was ridiculous and sounded like it was coming from under the front of vehicle. The nice thing is that there is a simple fix for this. Find or make a 6' bungee chord and wrap several times along front crossbar from drivers to pass sides. This creates some turbulence to break up air flow across crossbar.

Only thing I am going to change on the rack are the smaller inside crossbars. They sit about 2.5" higher than the outer bars and are smaller diameter. I am going to replace these with two 2" diameter bars to sit level with the others and create a more uniform look while lowering the overall visible height. 1 7/8" muffler clamps are great to adapt for attaching tubes or brackets to the outer tubing.

If you have a two door, purchase the unit that is slightly cheaper, seems that price directly correlates to the two door being cheaper and vice versa. DO NOT even hope to get answers about this rack by calling JCW, they are absolutely clueless phone operators. Everything you need is in the pages of this thread.