I installed the Wilderness expedition rack for my 2007 4 door and want to pass on a few tips on installing. I searched high and low for install tips before purchasing and could not find a lot of speciific info. Drilling the holes in the back is the biggest concern. Some of you may laugh but I wish these items were posted somewhere.

1. When you hit your fender with the center punch, don't put your weight into it. My first punch turned out to be somewhat agressive for the thin sheet metal and I punched a nice divot into the fender. Lucky it was not bigger than the washer that covered the hole! I am sure I sucked the divot flat when I tightend the bolts. The holes are no big deal to drill as they are all in a straight line running up and down with the corner seam. The back rack supports get strength from the corner seam that the internal bracket snugs up to.

2. You need to drop the rear tail lights and work inside the access openings. Instead of unclipping the wiring harness, I twisted the lightbulbs out of the tail light ,set the lense aside and let the harness and bulbs stay. I am not impressed with the jeep harness clips and I think the less you decouple them, the longer they will last. You just need to be careful not to pop the bulbs while working.

3. You will throw away your nice factory rear license plate bracket and replace it with a heavy duty flat stock steel one that tilts with the rear rack brackets. It comes with a chubby light bulb assembly that looks a bit on the cheap side. I wondered how the rack tilted without hitting the factory license plate and this is the answer. Have some silicone reaady to seal up the wiring holes.

4. Prepare to drive with the volume up on your radio. At about 40 mph you know there is somthing up there but it is mostly white noise. At 75 mph you may think you are part of some wind tunnel test you wish would end. When the radio volume was good at 15, I now need to turn it up to 20. I am contemplating a fairing.

5. All that said, I love this thing! My yakima rack bolts on (with optional brackets), Ski's, bikes, 2x4's, plywood, whatever... it's going up there.

 

How about some pics. I have been looking for a rack and would appreciate some insight on why you picked this rack over the others.

Edit: Do you have any favorite offroading spots nearby? I will be traveling to the twin city area within the next couple of months.

Thanks,

 

Why I chose this Rack: I liked the square tubing construction. I like the attachment points... very secure. It is a full length and width rack. It has good clearance between both tops. I found an attachment so I could use my yakama rack stuff. It's black and my truck is black, that was not so hard to find....

I will get pics and post. As far as trails there is a big OHV park in northern MN that was part of an open pit mine. I have driven by and it looks like a moonscape but I have never been there.

 

 

You wanted to match the color of your truck? I have a green truck (green Jeep, too), but matching the color of my truck never occurred to me.

 

Pics Please........

 

I put some images back on the original.

 

do you have enough lanterns???

Looks good, I like

 

From the pics it looks as though the rack is touching your hard top. How much space is there and do you think you could take off the hardtop without scratching it severely?

 

how would this work on a jeep that already had the aev corner guards installed...? would this cause a bind or put to much out-ward pressure on the pivot point...?

also, i already have the cooltech llc license plate frame cb antenna mount... how plausable would it be to utilize the existing antenna mount w/the new rack and make the cb antenna work...?

thanks in advance...
jason