Accessing roof rack holes from inside vehicle...

[Upper tanker]

Hey all. I have a 97 2 door Tahoe. Long story short, my kayack ripped the bolts out of the roof on the driver's rear bracket. I lost the bracket, and am now left with two gaping holes.

At first, I was just going to buy the rubber well nuts for the rear one, buy a replacement, and put it back on and just not haul anything. I was going to use a small utility trailer for my kayaks.

Now, I'd really like to remove the remaining 3 corner pieces, pop the riv nuts out, drill the corner piece holes larger, and put a bigger bolt through each hole with some nice thick steel plates under the roof with washers and lock nuts. This way, I wouldn't have to be scared shitless hauling anything such as kayaks.

My question is, is the roof double walled where those bolts go through? If so, is there enough room to get my hand in there with a piece of plate, nut, and washer? I'm trying to think of how I can do this the right way to still be able to haul stuff.

Any ideas?

 

[Upper tanker]

Anyone? I've tried to google, and have found a few pictures, but nothing really up close of the spot directly under the holes. I need to come up with a solution for this, hopefully a permanent, structurally solid one.

 

[scotto0609]

It's double wall and I don't believe you can access them.if you need a rack pm me.

 

[Upper tanker]

Ahh damn. I actually JUST bought the corner piecr today from a guy in a Facebook group. Thank you, though.

Also, is it double walled the entire width and length for the roof? Or just along the corners where the sides meet the roof?

I did see a few pics on Google images but there wasn't really direct pictures of the edges of the interior roof.

 

[Upper tanker]

Just in case anyone else stumbles upon this thread....

I got the chance to peek under the rear of the headliner today. I can easily fit 2" flat stock through the hole that is in the corners of where the roof bends down to the rear/side. My plan is to drill 2 holes in the flat stock that match up to the pattern of the bracket, weld 2 lock nuts w/washers to the flat stock, and try to weasle it up into where it needs to be. I am also going to use internal hex bolts instead of the garbage torx bolts so I can get some good force on them and not worry about stripping. I will try to get pics of the before/during/after.

I haven't looked at the fronts yet. I'm hoping there is at least another small access hole to get something in to secure those to.

Also, rivnuts have got to be the ********* piece of hardware I've ever seen.

 

[fastpat]

Good thread, sir.

My new rack basket arrives tomorrow, will install it soon. While I won't be carrying kayaks with their known wind issues, I will be using the basket to carry a rack bag of varying weight. The OEM roof rack is limited to 200 pounds, but the owners manual states that's to be on the strips on the roof itself, with the forward and rear cross bars used as movement stops. Curious, that. The new roof basket has a limit of 150 pounds, all of which will be carried by the cross bars to the side rails. I guess I'll see how that works, and may have to use your repair technique at some future date.

 

[Upper tanker]

Since somebody is interested, I will provide an update.

I got the rears done. I ended up bending pieces of 2" wide steel into "U" shape to fit over the corner pieces of the rack. Then, I used regular hex head grade 8 3/8" bolts and threaded them into the plate that I made. I did weld lock nuts to the plate. I struggled for an hour or two trying to figure out how to get the plate up to the holes to be able to thread the bolts in, since I couldn't really reach into there to get the plates in place. I ended up taking two pieces of rope, one for each hole, and feeding them into the roof, out of the hole in the back where the plate had to enter. I fed them through the hole and nut, and tied a knot. Then, I pulled both pieces of rope up tight to the ceiling from the outside. My dad held a prybar up against the plate while I threaded the bolts in. Once I did some trimming on the plate to sit where I needed them to, it was effortless. The second side I did literally took three minutes to fasten everything up.

I just posted on a 2 door Facebook page last night, asking for pictures of the roof where the front brackets hardware enters the cab. One guy (the guy that sold me the rear corner piece that I needed), had his headliner out, and was kind enough to take some pics. The front looks a hell of a lot easier, although I may need to use fender washers. Looking at his pics, I'm not sure if I'll be able to get the plates in there. I am going down to work on it some more today, and I will report back with my findings.

The only other issue that I see happening after this is the actual plastic tabs (that the metal rails fit into) snapping off under a heavy upwards load or wind resistance. I'm hoping, and betting that they don't, but having one kayak fall off doing 70 mph still has me a little worried.

 

[Upper tanker]

I got a chance to do the front two last night. SUPER pain in the ass compared to the rears. Most of the issues were because I didn't drop the headliner, and the trim. I only took the trim piece that goes from the windshield to the panel where the seat belt bolts to off, and I took the seat belt off and pulled that panel back a little. The headliner was super stiff. I was able to jam a big handle screwdriver between the roof and headliner. Since I have big hands, It was a pain to get one hand up in there. I also couldn't use one bracket with two nuts for both holes because the roof is double walled on the front hole, and it just wouldn't fit. I ended up cutting the plate in half, and using my rope trick to get it in there for the back holes. For the front holes, I super glued a fender washer to a flange serrated nut (as opposed to stover nuts that I used on the back), and just used that on the front hole.

Now, I definitely feel more confident in hauling my kayaks. I just feel like now, what's going to happen next are the problems I've listed above. BUT, I guess if the force before ripped the riv nut out of the roof, the plastic roof rack corner pieces are probably durable enough to handle the load.