Because I got the base model Outback, it came with no crossbars for gear haulin’. This is more or less fine, because I would have replaced them in short order anyway, but it does put me in a temporary bind. Looking at the Yakima offerings, I take issue with their current Railgrab system in that removal from the vehicle requires tools and also dismantles the crossbar assembly. The old Railrider system could be taken off fully assembled in under 30 seconds, 15 if you tried.
So, I set about conceiving and building a means for attaching the old foot pads to the Subaru’s raised rails. My first thought was that they’d be narrow enough to simply bolt to the rails. I wasn’t a big fan of tapping a hole in the rail tube, and as it turns out, this wasn’t a viable option anyway because the foot pads are too wide.
This lead me to the conclusion that I would need to build an adapter block to site between the pads and the rail. The rails on the Outback have a contour to the top, requiring my blocks to have a contour on the bottom and making my task about twice as difficult as it would have otherwise been. The basic concept for my blocks was to make a plastic piece which would nicely locate an aluminum bar which would be strapped to the rack and provide a secure bolt on location for the feet.
My first rev involved a block with a contoured bottom and a notch int he side for the bar. This seemed conceptually sound until I made a stupid mistake at 4 in the morning and rounded off the top, reducing the area to mount the foot on.
Looking at this concept, I hashed out a second version in which the bar dropped into slot from the top and was topped with a thin shim to guide the attachment straps. These pieces worked quite nicely with one problem. I didn’t account for the inelastic nature of ABS and cut too close of tolerance on the bar channel and bolt holes. When assembled, two of the blocks cracked before I ever got them near the vehicle. I glued them and mounted the foot pads anyway. Other than the structural compromise, they worked quite nicely.
Now with the rack on the car, I was able to test the theory that was driving me to all this effort in the first place – that the bars were going to make noise such that I’d want to remove them when not in use. Indeed they do, in the form of a low pitched tone at anything above 45mph.
Day three of the project I cut a new set of blocks very similar to the rev 2 units except with some slight play for all the bar and bolts. I took a bit more care with these, truly expecting them to be my final product. As follows is my process in pictures.
Blanks after being cut from a sheet of ABS and milled to square. Note there are five, so I have one to burn.
The channel for the aluminum bar to rest in.
First pass at contouring the bottoms. Note the right one is now too thin… good thing I had five.
The bottom contour to match the rails. This is nowhere near as smooth as the rails, but through a bit of testing it fits well enough.
Miters for the top surface. These are largely for aesthetics, but also to reduce the chance of running a hand along them and taking a chunk of flesh off on a sharp corner.
Clearance holes for the bolts to extend through the block slightly. If you look closely on the left you can see my one screw up of the batch where I put the hole in the wrong place. It took an extra half hour to turn the plug on the lathe (because I had to remember / learn how to use the lathe) and you wouldn’t see it anyway, but I’d have known it was there.
Milled guides for the attachment bands.
Final parts, with added end miters for completeness.
This last rev took me about three and half hours. The previous ones took maybe five and a half and four and half. This was by no means a fast project, but I really like building things. I often cannot visualize the final product well enough to start (part of why there were three revisions of this) but since these were simple enough and I had a well outfitted model shop at my disposal they were fun to learn on.
Pictures of the full assembly attached to the car will come later.
