RAY'S MONTERO SITE
MY MONTERO MODIFICATIONS
Garvin Wilderness Trails Roof Rack
THE RATINGS
Function
Install
Fit n Finish
Overall
Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3
Figure 4
"No matter how much room you think you have, you don't."
Why a Rack??
After attempting to get by with a Yakima Rack and their Basket Case rack attachment, I found that this was just not enough to carry Coolers, Equipment Bins and a couple of Gerry Cans like I needed, so I decided to get myself a new rack.
Search Criteria
My biggest problem was need to carry a number of different containers (equipement bins, coolers, and Gerry cans). If possible, I also wanted to carry my Hi-Lift up there.
What I found
I did a bit of searching and came upon a review on the rack from Garvin Industries called their Wilderness Trails Rack.
This was a true hard core grade rack which had a number of features I needed like optional flooring, hard mounts to the Rain Gutters, 4" or 6" heights. Various widths and lengths, etc.
It also offered a number of great optional attachments like a...
- Gas Can mount
- HiLift mount
- Wilderness Axe / Shovel mount
- Yakima Bar mount
- Ski or Bike mount adapters
- Spare Tire mount
- Light brackets
- Pull-Pal bracket
Why I didn't choose the others
- Surco: Too wimpy
- Conferr: Too heavy
- Yakima Basket Case: Even wimpier than the Surco Rack
- Yakima Load Warrior: Too Tall and wasn't available at the time I bought the Garvin unit.
Installation
Installation on the rack was pretty straight forward. With an adjustable open end wrench and a socket set, I was able to assemble the rack in my driveway in under 30 minutes.
Being that I had already installed a set of Yakima Load Bars on my Montero, I decided to use a set of Yakima Bar Mounts from Garvin to mount the rack to my Yakima setup.
Being only 5'6, getting the rack onto the Monty was a challenging affair. Even after I enlisted the help of John, my brother-in-law, we still had some difficulty getting it onto the tall roofline of the Montero.
After running things this way for several months, I've elected to get the regular gutter mounts (Figure 1). These mounts offer just the right amount of adjustability for an exacting fit and this put the rack at a better height (Figure 2).
As a great tip, you can re-use the Yakima mount brackets to attach Yakima Load bars on the top of the rack. This allowed me to use my Yakima Attachments like my Bike rack (Figure 3)
Ultimately, with all the available options, I ended up with a really good looking, "Swiss Army" rack system (Figure 4).
Hits since created on 10, June 2000