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New Roof Rack - Mounting Option for Awning

alksion

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Hello, I have purchased a RTT and a Nomadic 270 LT awning from Overland Vehicle Systems recently. Very happy with the products. Regarding the awning, works great with my basic Mopar racks with a t-track system. I just recently purchased a new rack from Expedition One to hold the RTT I bought from OVS. I am guessing the U Bolts (see images below) will now be used instead of the standard hex bolts. I just don't see a way for the U bolts to work on the new rack out of the box. Any suggestions or point me to extra hardware I need to purchase would be greatly appreciated.

I attached two photos and linked everything here.
Jeep Wrangler JL New Roof Rack - Mounting Option for Awning Screen Shot 2021-03-22 at 6.59.27 PM
Jeep Wrangler JL New Roof Rack - Mounting Option for Awning Screen Shot 2021-03-22 at 6.59.02 PM
Jeep Wrangler JL New Roof Rack - Mounting Option for Awning Screen Shot 2021-03-22 at 8.14.22 PM
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alksion

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Hello I got a response from one of the manufacturers who thinks I might have to drill into the new rack. I don’t really care about drilling into the new rack. It’s more of the complications of taking it off when not in use.

anybody that can help me I would greatly appreciate it. I’ll buy you a coffee or do whatever it takes. Also maybe this should be moved to the roof racks section as I might not have put in the right place here.
Jeep Wrangler JL New Roof Rack - Mounting Option for Awning B6AA8056-E5EF-4B0A-88BD-1F1F5A60BFB7
 
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What appears to be good news... It looks like the load bars that expedition one is sending me ($200 on top of the cost of the rack) have a t track system on them. I can’t confirm yet, but when I get them tomorrow, I’ll update here in case anyone encounters similar.
 

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Very interesting rack. I wasn't aware the rain gutters could support that kind of weight - which is why I went with the backbone system, though not happy about drilling into the hardtop.

Nice find.
 
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Very interesting rack. I wasn't aware the rain gutters could support that kind of weight - which is why I went with the backbone system, though not happy about drilling into the hardtop.

Nice find.
Yeah it has four contact points on each side with the rain gutter, but it also sits on top of the roof itself. Then there are crossbars that attach to the rack so the weight is distributed as best as you can without drilling into the roof, which I did not want to do.

It has a 250 pound dynamic and 500 pound static weight recommendation. I’m pretty sure we can go slightly over that but will error on the side of caution.

Once I have everything put together I will send some photos this way. As mentioned in my previous post it does appear the crossbars have mounting solutions that I needed. They are a separate piece and initially I could not find pictures of the crossbars.
 

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Received it today. Spent about 3 hours putting it together. Not quite done. Terrible instructions but great quality hardware. I’ll check back in once it’s completed.
Jeep Wrangler JL New Roof Rack - Mounting Option for Awning 37CC55DE-4D11-4948-8F59-13D75ACBF13F
Jeep Wrangler JL New Roof Rack - Mounting Option for Awning 7914146F-0965-4024-AB0F-A2DB5B9C37B9
 

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Was responding to your previous post asking for awning recommendations, but saw that you're going with a larger rack now.

I wanted roof cargo and an awning too, and use the Mopar bars with a roof box tbat weighs over 50lbs. empty, so the 150lb. limit with tough to figure out. I ended up getting a 6' Yakima Slimshady, both for the name and the relatively svelt 20lb. weight, mounted driver's side. I'm currently modifying it to further reduce that weight.

Curious as to why you chose passenger-side awning. Does driver have to access the roof box frequently? I originally did passenger-side awning too, but found that the tailgate would often be in the way if it was open with the table down for cooking. E.g., bringing food around it to the table, or awkwardly handing food over the tire because everyone (including me) was too lazy to move the extra two feet to get around the tailgate, or not being able to watch things cook from the table under the shade.

Once I started noticing it, walking around it each time became surprisingly tedious. Eventually I got fed up, switched things around, and have been much happier since, but am still curious as to your reasoning.

Was the weight of the awning including all the additional legs, pegs, guylines and such? 50lbs. is really good for a bat/foxwing that you can have open without the legs down. I wonder if I could swing it, since you said it fits the Mopar bars well. I've debated switching to a rack like your new one, but losing the Freedom Panels sucks. Maybe I should only keep pillows up top.
 
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Was responding to your previous post asking for awning recommendations, but saw that you're going with a larger rack now.

I wanted roof cargo and an awning too, and use the Mopar bars with a roof box tbat weighs over 50lbs. empty, so the 150lb. limit with tough to figure out. I ended up getting a 6' Yakima Slimshady, both for the name and the relatively svelt 20lb. weight, mounted driver's side. I'm currently modifying it to further reduce that weight.

Curious as to why you chose passenger-side awning. Does driver have to access the roof box frequently? I originally did passenger-side awning too, but found that the tailgate would often be in the way if it was open with the table down for cooking. E.g., bringing food around it to the table, or awkwardly handing food over the tire because everyone (including me) was too lazy to move the extra two feet to get around the tailgate, or not being able to watch things cook from the table under the shade.

Once I started noticing it, walking around it each time became surprisingly tedious. Eventually I got fed up, switched things around, and have been much happier since, but am still curious as to your reasoning.

Was the weight of the awning including all the additional legs, pegs, guylines and such? 50lbs. is really good for a bat/foxwing that you can have open without the legs down. I wonder if I could swing it, since you said it fits the Mopar bars well. I've debated switching to a rack like your new one, but losing the Freedom Panels sucks. Maybe I should only keep pillows up top.
It’s kind of funny how the story goes. We barely got the jeep in November. We wanted to start doing some off roading and camping. We planned to do a spring break trip up the coast of California through Oregon.

We did our initial/beta camping trip sleeping in the back of the jeep and had a pop up awning from Amazon. Before buying the jeep we didn’t own a single piece of camping gear. Sleeping in the back of the jeep is fun and it’s still an option for us depending on the trip but we quickly discovered that only staying at one campsite per night would be very tedious tearing down camp and setting up camp each day we moved.

Initially we figured that the awning was the thing that took the most time and space and so we just bought the 270. After setting it up at our house and seeing how cool it was both my wife and I decided very quickly we wanted a rooftop tent as well.

When we were just using the Mopar racks we were only going to use the awning attached. We looked at some Cargo boxes but between price and weight it pushed us towards a rooftop tent. The Mopar Racks do work quite well with the awning, but that’s about it.

As far as the decision to go with the passengers side. It was the only option that was available in inventory at the time. But we don’t cook from the tailgate. We have a collapsible table and usually pull everything out side the car not leaving the trunk open much at camp. It should be a non-issue for us but will find out as we leave for our 10 day camping trip next week.
 
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Jeep Wrangler JL New Roof Rack - Mounting Option for Awning 96D79C88-8098-4CAE-9933-9D05D54221B2
Jeep Wrangler JL New Roof Rack - Mounting Option for Awning C0B69E42-F183-4CB3-873A-0428868F96D5
Jeep Wrangler JL New Roof Rack - Mounting Option for Awning 1F2501EC-A39E-4105-A749-756B0698D34E
Jeep Wrangler JL New Roof Rack - Mounting Option for Awning CF4A06EC-E4EC-4C6B-B21C-7DE2A0402532
Jeep Wrangler JL New Roof Rack - Mounting Option for Awning B37FE4A3-60A2-455F-B2B4-BB905420C5DC

Just thought I would share some photos. It was a great trip. The rack and tent worked out nicely. It was a lot of work assembling everything myself and I would probably pay someone if I had to do it again but that’s about it.
 

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It’s more of the complications of taking it off when not in use.

anybody that can help me I would greatly appreciate it. I’ll buy you a coffee or do whatever it takes. Also maybe this should be moved to the roof racks section as I might not have put in the right place here.
I'm a dealer for RacksBrax (quick release mounts). check out my website. These have locking pins so you can remove and install without tools.

Pick up a set of wall mounts and you wont have to leave it on the floor of your garage. You can hang it on the wall with the same mounts.
 
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I'm a dealer for RacksBrax (quick release mounts). check out my website. These have locking pins so you can remove and install without tools.

Pick up a set of wall mounts and you wont have to leave it on the floor of your garage. You can hang it on the wall with the same mounts.
What are you referring to the Mopar roof racks or the new full-size rack that I bought?
 

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Jeep Wrangler JL New Roof Rack - Mounting Option for Awning B37FE4A3-60A2-455F-B2B4-BB905420C5DC
Jeep Wrangler JL New Roof Rack - Mounting Option for Awning B37FE4A3-60A2-455F-B2B4-BB905420C5DC
Jeep Wrangler JL New Roof Rack - Mounting Option for Awning B37FE4A3-60A2-455F-B2B4-BB905420C5DC
Jeep Wrangler JL New Roof Rack - Mounting Option for Awning B37FE4A3-60A2-455F-B2B4-BB905420C5DC
Jeep Wrangler JL New Roof Rack - Mounting Option for Awning B37FE4A3-60A2-455F-B2B4-BB905420C5DC

Just thought I would share some photos. It was a great trip. The rack and tent worked out nicely. It was a lot of work assembling everything myself and I would probably pay someone if I had to do it again but that’s about it.
Did you sleep well? I like the setup.
 
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Did you sleep well? I like the setup.
Yes sir. We bought an additional 2" memory foam topper to put on top of the provided 3" memory foam pad. It made all the difference. Great trip! I will upload a video soon that I made from the trip.
 
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Did you sleep well? I like the setup.
As promised here's a video I made of the our trip. Haven't owned a good camera and years. Bought the drone recently too, but I had some fun getting my feet wet again.

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