I talked to the Yakima Rack support line a couple of weeks ago about mounting their racks on the poptop of my 86 Westfalia. They told me which brackets would be best for putting the towers on and then went on to tell me that the max I should put on the racks is two bicycles or . . . I forget what else . . . Anyway I asked if tearout of the brackets from the fiberglass was a problem and he said no. The brackets could hold much more with no fear of tearout. The problem that Yakima is concerned with is lift. They seem to be afraid that lots of stuff on their roofrack, on a poptop, could create enough lift to make the poptop latch fail, allowing the poptop to "parachute" up while driving down the road. He also said that a canoe on the rack was out of the question also due to the lift concern. Anybody ever hear of anything like this? I've seen a number of Westfalias with racks mounted to the poptop (not the gutters) with a lots of stuff on the rack. Are these disasters waiting to happen at hiway speeds? Rich Durant -- Rich Durant Licensing & Installation Products Mentor Graphics Corporation |
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