Sabre's Gen III Phase II: Roof Rack, More Armor, Sleeping Platform

[Sabre]

When we last visited clan Sabre, a few projects had been done, such as removing the plastic body cladding, trimming the bumpers, and adding a bit of underbody protection. Read about it in this thread.

We learned on previous trips to Moab and on a long, off-pavement loop to Yellowstone that we wanted some specific mods that would enhance the truck's abilities in the backcountry without messing up its behavior in town.

Number one on the list was a proper roof rack. I wanted something strong and useful and with a maximum amount of flexibility in how it can be used. For the last couple of trips we relied upon an aluminum rack that I found on Craigslist. Here's what that one looked like after I fabbed up a homemade mounting system that clamped it on to the factory load bars:

Although this rack met our needs for a few trips, it did have specific drawbacks that I wanted to correct. First, being made of aluminum and never intended for such heavy use, it started to come apart after a thousand miles of washboard and other brutal road conditions. We had a lot of stuff up there at different times: a second spare tire, spare fuel, spare water, hi-lift jack, large propane tank, and other miscellaneous goodies. I had repaired it several times but it was just tearing itself to bits. Second, I didn't like how it used the roof's surface area; it covered the marvelous, enormous sunroof on the Montero and it left a bunch of empty roof space at the rear. This was a function of how the factory load bars were mounted. Finally, I wanted a cleaner mounting system that was more efficient and less "Rube Goldberg."

Last year, while making the skidplate that I mounted under the engine, I threw together a roof rack with my newfound welding skills. Here it is in primer:

No, the welds aren't pretty, but they penetrate well and are strong. I had run out of gas for the MIG and decided to teach myself stick welding for this project. Hey, life is one long series of opportunities to learn new things! You notice on the rectangular frame that there are a few support brackets made out of L-shaped metal. These are supports for future use if I decide that I want to put a floor up there. Plastic poultry flooring has been used by some and is ideal for this purpose. I actually sourced some out and sized the rack to allow easy fitment of this cool stuff. We could throw the floor up there, add a couple of camp chairs and turn the thing into a nifty viewing platform for wildlife viewing trips, airshows, etc.

At the start of this summer I dusted this thing off and decided that I had made it far too heavy. Because I'm not an engineer, I always err on the side of caution and all my projects are built, as my late father-in-law used to say, "hell for stout." So I cut out all the round bars which were much heavier than they needed to be and replaced them with heavy-walled electrical conduit. This stuff is plenty strong and saves many pounds up there.

For the past year I've been thinking about how to make a mounting system that was versatile, strong, simple, and would allow easy removal of whatever I had up there. I finally decided that I would removed the factory load bars and toss them. In their place I envisioned track similar to what my company used in its wheelchair vans, the same stuff that trucks use to secure loads inside the vans. Unfortunately, I learned that the factory rack doesn't really live in the groove that I had imagined, but that under that molding trim there is a center rib where the roof is welded to the sides of the body. Therefore, I wasn't going to be able to mount the track in that groove, or at least couldn't do so without a heck of a lot of extra monkey business.

I decided to install a U-channel of aluminum, upside-down, therefore allowing the U-shaped channel to straddle this center rib. I designed a way of mounting the rack (or whatever else I came up with) that would allow for quick and easy installation and removal. After careful measurement, I ordered the aluminum channel from an online supplier. It's 6063 "architectural" aluminum, which is quite flexible and light; the U-channel is 0.75" x 0.75" with a 0.125" (1/8") wall thickness. OK, the material arrived and I had to bite the bullet and remove the factory load bars. This was intimidating but, happily, I had excellent guidance from another (former) Montero owner who had removed his bars for another project. Member Imnosaint, although he later sold his Montero, provided inspiration and reassurance in his excellent descriptions of how to remove the factory bars. This gave me the confidence that I needed to proceed. I thank Imnosaint for this guidance, without which my project would have been much more fraught with worry and difficulty, I'm sure.

OK, here goes. To remove the factory bars, the headliner has to come down. There's no other way around it. I had formerly pulled the headliner down in front when installing a roof-mount NMO antenna base for my ham radio, so I knew more or less what would be involved. One of the most challenging parts of this operation involves the sun visors. I resolved to leave these in place and pull down the rest of the headliner, leaving it attached in the very front. Although it complicated the work somewhat, I do believe that it saved me a bit of time and frustration.

First, the interior grab handles, lights, and HVAC vents need to be removed. Tip: when you later replace the grab handles, be sure to use some Loctite blue or similar threadlocker. They seem to have a habit of becoming loose otherwise.

After removing and carefully setting aside these bits and pieces, the weatherstripping needs to be pulled down. Although this seemed intimidating, it's really super easy. Just pick an upper corner and start experimenting. You'll quickly see that the stuff just pulls right down and that it will be easy to replace later on. Whew! It's always a relief to learn that a chore that I had been dreading turns out to be a piece of cake. Anyway, I peeled down the weatherstripping from both second-row doors and from the rear. Next, the interior trim moulding needs to be removed. Again, I had done some of this in the past with that antenna installation and after replacing the subwoofer in the rear of the truck. With this previous experience behind me, I confidently pulled these pieces straight off. If you just grab them and pull, not prying them with tools, they come off without damaging the little plastic clips that hold them in place.

Once this ceiling hardware, weatherstripping and moulding is out, the headliner can be simply pulled down. It's actually held up by a heavy-duty sort of Velcro. I don't know the technical name for it, but it works basically like Velcro in that you just pull it apart and later press it back together. When it does get re-installed, you feel a distinct "click" when it sticks back together. Anyway, just pull the headliner down. If you've forgotten to remove something, it'll become apparent right away.

The mounting hardware that you need access to is hidden behind the HVAC ductwork, which needs to come down. This stuff is arranged in a "U" shape with a duct running along the top of the back door, connecting to two ducts running forward along both sides of the vehicle. It is fed by the rear HVAC unit in the right rear of the truck. This plastic riser piece is the first piece that you'll need to remove. You can see it here behind the 3rd row seat belt. It's the black plastic thing.

It comes out with a couple of screws.

OK, now the ceiling ducts need to come out. They're made out of white plastic covered with black foam stuff. Here you can see the rear duct that runs over the rear door connecting to both the right and left side ducts. This rear duct needs to come out next.

Before removing this rear duct, you'll need to remove the metal bracket that supports the rear cargo light.

Then it's just a couple of screws and that rear duct comes right down.

Now just remove a few more screws and the right and left ducts come down easily.

We can finally get to the hardware that we need to remove. Each roof rail has five nuts that hold it in place: two at the front and rear, and one in the middle. Remove these and the thing just lifts right off. Here are the rear mounts on the left and right:

Here are the single mounting nuts that are in the center of the load bars. Note that the one on the left side is close to the AM radio antenna wire that leads to the left, rear window.

Finally, here is how I accessed the front mounting nuts. Since I hadn't pulled down the entire headliner, I just reached up through the sunroof opening and had easy access to these nuts. See that industrial Velcro-like stuff just to the rear of the opening?

Back off those five nuts per side and here's what you get:

Alright, let's look next at what's left up there on the roof when you remove those load bars. Pictured here is the forward mount for the left-side load bar, right above the driver's head:

Here's the center mounting location on that same side:

And here's the rear mount on the left side:

Continued below....

 

[Sabre]

I'll point out a few things that you can see in the above photos. First, note that the channel in which the load bars' feet sit has that center rib. The trim pieces that fill in the groove between the mounting feet comprise four pieces per side: one that covers the gap from the windshield trim to the front foot, one that covers the gap from the front foot to the middle foot, another that runs from the middle to the rear foot, and the fourth piece that spans from the rear foot to the rear door. This stuff is held on with little plastic clips that grip those flattened, bent-over bits that you can see on the center rib. To remove these trim pieces, just sort of push down and toward the center of the vehicle and they rotate right up and out of the groove. Some of the little white clips will most likely break. No matter, most will be thrown away. Note that I did keep the front and rear pieces of trim to fill the gap ahead of and behind my new mounting track. The two middle pieces get tossed in the hopper. Second, you can see that the mounting holes lead straight into your vehicle! From the factory, little pieces of butyl rubber adhesive tape provide a weather seal to prevent water intrusion. We'll need to address this when we install the new hardware.

OK, here's what I want. I want to be able to remove this thing in the future (if, for some reason, I ever need to!) without having to drop the headliner. Obviously, that means that those retaining nuts won't be able to be backed off, so they'll need to be fixed in place. Some folks have used Nutserts, Rivnuts, or rivet nuts for this application; all would work well and would likely be less work than I performed for the same task, but I'm a more do-it-yourself kind of guy and I had some hardware on hand, so I proceeded to make my own. First, I welded a fender washer (for increased surface area) to each of the little retaining nuts.

Next, I held each nut in place by threading it onto a compatible bolt and welded the washer in place. Messy work, but not too difficult and it's all very secure. Of course, always disconnect the vehicle's battery before welding anywhere on the truck. Otherwise, you can/will fry the ECU and perhaps any other little computers on board. Remember that you'll need the radio code in order for the radio to work after reconnecting the battery. Since I bought mine used and didn't inherit that code from the previous owner, a call to the friendly folks at Mitsubishi USA in California got me the code. Also recall that your ECU will be cleared after sitting for a time without power and will have to relearn your driving habits. You may notice the rig shifting oddly for a few days as it learns your preferences. Alright, here's the unsightly but effective result:

See how the recycled felt insulation is pulled back away from the work area? Want to know how easily that stuff bursts into flame? What to know how exciting it is to have your ceiling suddenly on fire in a cramped truck full of stuff? It's fun, boys and girls...real fun! As I said in the wheel bearing replacement thread, do as I say, not as I do. In other words, do not set your ceiling on fire. You'll be just fine without this particular sort of excitement in your life.

OK, now to make sure that those holes are sealed against rain while I work on the aluminum track. My new mounting hardware is stainless, and I just threaded them in and sealed them with some silicone caulk. It's effective but only temporary, and will be easy to remove later when I'm ready for the actual installation. Don't things look a lot nicer now that I've got the pine needles and debris out of there?

Here's a shot down the length of that groove. For the record, it's about one inch wide.

Looks pretty clean without those load bars up there, doesn't it?

OK, now to explain my mounting system. Two things need to be mounted: the aluminum U-channel needs to be mounted to the roof and the rack needs to be mounted to the U-channel. Now, taking a short piece of that U-channel and getting up there on the roof, I saw immediately that the installation would require the hardware going in at an angle. Remember that the roof not only curves from front to back, but also from side to side. Therefore, the inverted U-channel needs to rest in that groove with the top of the channel not flat and level, but curving front to back and tilting out toward each side of the truck. This means that those stainless mounting bolts won't go straight through the bottom (now the top) of the inverted channel but will have to go through at an angle. This angle means that the mounting bolts will actually pass through the inner (toward the midline of the vehicle) side wall of each inverted U-channel. To drill these holes, I made up a little jig on my drill press. This allowed the work to be drilled at the proper angle, with the drill cutting into the lower half of the side wall of the inverted stock.

So I drilled five such angled holes per side, test-fitted everything, and then moved on to the mounting system that would attach the rack to the U-channel. Rather than have homemade nutserts inside the channel like I did with the inside of the truck's roof, I decided to have threaded mounting studs projecting upwards. In other words. the nuts aren't fixed in position, the bolts are. I chose this method because I felt that it would be easier to mount the rack, a task I would be doing without help, if I could locate it on those mounting studs rather than running from corner to corner trying to line up holes. If the rack is removed for a period of time, I'll put little rubber nipples over the studs to keep them from rusting.

What I came up with is to have four mounting feet on the rack (one at each corner), with each mounting foot having two holes for hardware attachment...a total of eight bolts will hold the rack to the roof mounts. To position these mounting studs in place (since I couldn't weld the steel bolts to the thin aluminum channel), I fashioned four little rectangular steel plates that fit inside the U-channel. Through these plates I drilled two holes each so that each little metal plate would have two bolts coming through. I welded the bolts to the plates so that I now had four double-bolt mounts. I drilled corresponding holes through the U-channel and placed them in position. The only thing left was to secure them in place. I did this with a small screw in the center of each plate, recessed so that the mounting feet of the rack could rest flat on the aluminum channel. Sounds complicated, huh? Maybe the pictures will help:

You can see above how the mounting studs are arranged in pairs and affixed inside the U-channel, projecting upwards when the channel is installed upside-down in that groove on the roof.

Now to test-fit the channels on the roof. You can see very clearly how the channels have to bend to fit the contours of the curving roof.

Now I made the four mounting feet that would attach to the new roof hardware. I cut four pieces of L-channel steel and drilled them to fit those mounting studs. The roof rack will therefore be held in place with eight nuts.

Here you can see that I've painted the aluminum tracks black (after using the appropriate primer). I've bedded them in a black urethane caulking that accomplishes a couple of goals. First, it seals the five bolts per side to prevent water entry into the cabin. Second, it fills the little grooves on each side of the aluminum channel to reduce water ponding and accumulation of dirt and debris. Finally, it will insulate the channel-roof junction against vibration, hopefully eliminating buzzing or squeaking as the body is wracked by rough terrain and as the two different metals expand and contract with differing coefficients as the temperature changes. In this picture the four steel mounting feet are in place, and I'm about to lift the rack into position to measure the attachment of the rack to the mounting feet.

What I did next was to place the rack up there and shim it with wood bits until I had it positioned the way I wanted. My goal, as I stated earlier, was to keep the sunroof area free and clear and to have the rack go right to the back of the truck. I also decided to mount the rack so that it was level. Since the roof curves toward the back, the rear of the rack will be higher off the roof than the front will be. I wanted the front to be as low as possible, remembering that the lower the center of mass, the more stable the vehicle was on a side hill. Plus, lower mounting will mean that it will be easier to reach things up there and every inch counts.

Here's the rack, upside-down, after I've welded on the mounting feet and painted it. The front of the rack is away from us, the rear closer to the camera. You can see that those rear mounts stand off from the frame more than the front ones do, accommodating the curve of the roof.

OK, it's time for the big moment. Voila!

Note that the mounting tracks continue on forward past the rack, so that if, in the future, I want to mount some sort of front extension or longer rack, I will have a mounting location available. If I ever get a rooftop tent, I may put some sort of crossbar up there to support the front of it. For now, the size is fine. Here's how our two kayaks traveled on the trip we just completed:

I am very happy to report that, after 11 days of bone-jarring washboard and a variety of crashing and banging over some fairly technical terrain, the rack held rock-steady, with no squeaks or rattles, and that the fairly heavy plastic boats didn't move an inch. All in all, I'm very happy with this project.

 

[Sabre]

OK, a few other bits. Again, thanks to inspiration from Imnosaint, I decided to install a hinged table on the back door. Rather than use the lovely oak that he used, I used a piece of 3/4" plywood that I had handy. A couple of coats of polyurethane and it was ready for duty. It's hinged on two hinges that anchor most handily into the metal piece that runs along the bottom of that rear storage cubby. As we found out on our recent trip, this is SUPER handy!

I was also inspired by Imnosaint's use of the location for the OEM tool kit. Listen, I dearly love the Mighty Mitsu, but those cheap zinc tools are pretty useless, and occupy a spot that could be used for a better purpose. I keep a small ammo can of proper tools in the "basement" (the rear underfloor storage area where the third row seat would live if it weren't resting on a shelf in the garage). Imnosaint installed his first aid kit here in a small Pelican case. Since this stuff is used only very infrequently, I decided that my first aid stuff would also live in the basement and that this space would be dedicated to something that we use every day. I mounted our "day tank" back there. When we travel, we carry three 20-liter Reliant water cans. For daily use, we use our Reliant "day tank," a smaller container with a handy spout that allows easy use for drinking, tooth brushing, washing up, etc. With a piece of scrap wood and a few little metal bits that I bent up, I found that this day tank fits that space perfectly.

Yes, the rear door closes perfectly well with the container in place, even with our new sleeping platform in place. After packing the truck, I decided to use the most rearward position for our 80-liter Engel Deep Blue cooler, which means that the container does need to be removed when the door is closed. Happily, those Fastex buckles mean that it pops on and off that shelf in seconds.

 

[fog cutter]

that came out great and it's nice close to the roof instead of up on stilts. i'm thinking of a rack next year, but after seeing the work installing this i'm glad the van has rain gutters.

 

[Sabre]

OK, the final project before our trip. At the start of the summer, my beloved SabreWife announced that she was done sleeping on the ground. No problemo...inspired by others (Grasscat's was the first I saw), I decided to build a sleeping platform. First, I removed the second row of seats. They come out easily after removing a couple of bolts.

I lucked into a sale at the local big box store and found that they had 4x8 sheets of finished plywood on sale for 50% off. The thickness is 23/32", or basically 3/4". Don't you love Imperial units? How stupid is that measurement? For those of you in countries using units that make sense, this is about 18.25 mm. I wanted it to be 6'-6" long and just a bit wider than 4', so I cut it to length and used biscuit joinery to shorten it and make it a bit wider.

I determined how high I wanted to mount this thing above the floor. I settled on a height that would be a bit more than the Front Runner storage boxes I had, but that allowed the Sterilite file boxes that we use for dry food storage to fit perfectly. After determining this height, I knew the shape that I'd need to cut to match the contours of the inside of the vehicle at that distance from the floor. After running the router around the edges to round things over a bit, I cut the thing and placed a piano hinge in a position that would allow a single folding section, rather than making multiple folding sections as I'd seen done before. This folding section comes forward when we park for the night, and requires that the front seats be moved forward. In the morning, we fold it back, exposing the second row area and making it easier to access the stuff stored there. Some indoor-outdoor carpet went down next, being applied with adhesive on a toothed trowel and heavy-duty stapling around the underside. I chose an adhesive that wouldn't be outgassing and making us sick for the first week of our trip.

OK, how to mount this thing? Prior to installing the carpet, I determined where I wanted to mount the hold-down hardware, and installed little nutserts at those locations. I threaded into them from below for the hold-down hardware, which is pretty self-explanatory in the photo shown below. As for the pedestals, I used 2" ABS pipe. I have a hole saw that produces round blanks that fit exactly inside this size pipe. Therefore, rather than screwing pipe caps to the underside of the platform at $3.75 each, I just glued and screwed little plywood circles in these positions; the ABS slips over them and is held in place perfectly. Oh, I threw a piece of larger diameter ABS into the center of the thing just because I had it lying around the shed. Not sure if it's necessary, but there was no time for experimentation before leaving on our trip and I didn't want to get into the middle of nowhere and find that things were flexing too much. I'll probably remove it.

Here's what it looks like from above. You can see that I used some wooden doweling that I had lying around for the fold-down front legs. I also, because I'm of the overbuilt, "hell for stout" school of construction, glued and screwed a small ledge at the front edge of the fixed section, so that the hinged forward section rests on that ledge so that all the weight isn't taken by the little screws of the piano hinge. SabreWife and I aren't shockingly obese, but we're average folks who carry a bit more avoirdupois than we ought to. This thing is rock solid.

Oh, yeah, I also sewed up a little black privacy screen that hangs from an elastic cord stretched between the front grab handles...you can see this in that last picture. Our rear windows are heavily tinted but SabreWife wanted a bit more privacy in the event that we had to camp in a campground some time. We never camp in campgrounds but she was reassured to know that if we ended up with other folks around that she'd have more privacy.

Here, in this photo from our recent trip, you can see the Sterilite food box sitting on top of the platform. This guy lives below the platform when we're travelling. Oh, and you can see that we also changed the platform since those last pictures were taken. I decided that our 80-quart Engels cooler would be better carried at the very back of the truck rather than in the place of the second row seats where I had originally envisioned it. Of course, it's too tall to fit beneath the platform. This required that I cut out a section of the platform. I installed aluminum angle (just visible to the left of the food box) to the three cut edges of the removable section. When we're travelling, the cooler lives back there and is easily accessible from the rear without having to remove it. When we set up camp, we set it on the ground outside the truck (it's bear-proof) and drop that cutout section into position.

I just throw my air mattress on there, but I bought SabreWife a delightfully decadent piece of foam for her mattress. You know, what the old dudes say is completely true: ain't nobody happy if mama ain't happy. Well, she was delighted with this setup, and wants to immediately plan to go on another trip as soon as possible. Success!

Oh, here's a little detail that I also added before we left. In case we camped in an area with mosquitoes, we'd be outside our former tent and therefore vulnerable to the little bloodsuckers. So I went to the hardware store and bought a bunch of plastic screen mesh, as well as the flexible magnetic ribbon. I cut out the screen to fit the windows and sunroof, and sewed the edges with the magnetic ribbon round the perimeter of each piece. Of course, we'd have to sleep with the rear door closed (which we didn't normally do), but would be able to have the windows and sunroof fully open after slapping the magnetic screens up there. Nifty, huh?

 

[Sabre]

OK, one MORE last little bit.

I had previously built a skitplate to fit under the engine:

I wanted to continue aft and built one to protect the transmission. I used steel angle from the local metal recycler's scrapyard (I LOVE that place!) and, for a bit of weight savings, used a heavy aluminum plate as the actual protection. The bottom of it:

...and the upper view:

I welded up little mounting brackets and installed them on the front crossmember, just as I'd done for the previous skidplate.

Note that the innermost two brackets come with the OEM vehicle. The outermost two, one on each side, are there to both take more of the weight of the truck and also to help locate the plate when re-installing it. That front member is much wider than the skidplate itself as I have future plans to attach additional protection to each side of the truck and it will attach there. Here's the thing in place.

To attach it at the rear, to the center crossmember, I removed the crossmember, drilled it, and welded nuts to the top of it rather than installing those brackets.

The two holes in the aluminum are just to allow a bit of air circulation around that extremely hot bit of the exhaust system (you know how those things work, right?).

While negotiating some outrageous, jagged, gnarly basalt on a very steep trail near Banks Lake, locked down in 4-low, we enjoyed some gratifying grinding noises as this new hardware protected our vulnerable underparts. I love a little additional peace of mind!

 

[TheMole]

Very nice man good job! Good seeing people getting their Monteros where they want to be.

 

[Marutuk]

Very nice! I may actually steal the idea for the water tank at the rear door since I do no longer have the case that Imnosaint had initially installed in the door. And with all the cooking and such, having a small water source there is a good idea.

 

[ctdfab]

Great progress on your build! Love how the roof rack came out! Might have to steal some ideas as well lol

 

[Sabre]

Hey, there are no copyrights on any of these! Steal, hell...take 'em!

As I said, I borrowed heavily from the work of others. Why re-invent the wheel if the guy in the next cave has one that you like?

 

[Marutuk]

But what if you just don't like those road wheels and want to go with a triangle one?

But I agree with your assessment on that extra space on the rear door - sure a first aid kit is needed in a car, but you hopefully won't need it. Having a water tank there is a great solution.

 

[SirFrancisDrake]

I like the idea of putting the dowels that hold up the hinged part of the platform on hinges as well. Totally stealing that idea for my platform!

 

[Sabre]

I like the idea of putting the dowels that hold up the hinged part of the platform on hinges as well. Totally stealing that idea for my platform!

Yeah, those legs would jam into the backs of the front seats if they were rigidly mounted and not folded up when that front section folds up or down. Of course, you could just set them in place when deploying the front section (i.e., not actually attach them to the platform), but I wanted to be able to fold it out single handed rather than relying on two people to set the legs in place.

I actually might rotate the leg hinges 90 degrees so that they fold up like snake fangs rather than toward the midline. That would make it easier to fold back single handed.

 

[Sabre]

This weekend I fabbed up an adapter to mount the spare a little higher and farther back. This last trip we did was the first with the Trasharoo installed, and it was nearly impossible to access the straps with the spare being so close to the bodywork. Also, the spare rubbed on the top of the rear bumper.

It's a shameless near-copy of one that I've seen online. The pics speak for themselves...I'm very happy with the way it turned out.

 

[YOURDOCTORONLY]

My friend, your project with the Montero is great!!!! by the way, my father in law got completely crazy!!! he want to copy some of your ideas for his 2002 Montero!!! jejejeje, enjoy your Montero my friends