Date:         Tue, 22 Feb 2005 11:05:59 -0600
Reply-To:     briwasson@VERIZON.NET
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         briwasson@VERIZON.NET
Subject:      Raingutter mounts on Westy top?
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

Hi,

I'd like to mount Yakima raingutter towers (1A) and bars on the pop top of my 88 Westy to carry a canoe and/or kayak. It looks like the Yakima WideBody raingutter adapters are the way to go. I'd appreciate any thoughts on how to best go about attaching these to the fiberglass top. I'm a bit cautious about drilling through a perfectly good top! Are there any online "how to" pages with photos? If not, maybe I'll put one up after I do this common mod.

Some questions:
1. Do you run the bolts all the way through the top, so they are visible inside the camper?
2. Is it necessary to reinforce the area where the bolts and nuts attach? (With a steel plate or something similar.)
3. How far down on the top do you mount the brackets?

I imagine this has come up before, but I've tried searching the archives several times and always get "timeout" errors when doing so.

Thanks,
Brian Wasson
Abington, Pa.