For a while I’ve wanted a way to carry some recovery gear on the roof of my 4Runner. Having a hi-lift inside requires fastening it down to avoid the “egg beater” effect in the event of a hard stop or (God forbid) a roll. And, Maxtrax take up a decent amount of space.
So, after some research I decided to get some custom crossbars. Cheaper than a full replacement rack, and less invasive to install. I went with a product from LFD Offroad, including their hi-lift mount. They were great, but I have a few “learnings” to share.
- Measure 4 times, cut once. My original order was for two of the “wide” crossbars. I assumed I could mount both the Maxtrax and the hi-lift on that, but it turns out the Maxtrax mounting pins are really opinionated about their spacing, and the hi-lift mount didn’t agree (at least with my 48 inch version of the hi-lift). Lesson learned, get more than 2 crossbars (I eventually wound up with 4).
- Remove the factory crossbars. Sort of a follow on to 1 (measure what you want to do), but I originally thought that with only two aftermarket crossbars, I could leave the factory crossbars on and still mount my Thule ski rack on them. Turns out that (at least with the wider aftermarket crossbars, and my sort of big feet) my bindings wouldn’t fit between the ski racks. I worked around it by mounting some old thule crossbars in addition to my new aftermarket ones, which worked great, but it is worth noting the thule ski rack mounting “band” can’t fit around the “wide” aftermarket crossbars, thus requiring separate crossbars during ski season.
- The install of the aftermarket crossbars is a bit “fiddly.” Not difficult, just requires some patience.
Despite some bumps, overall I’m very very happy with the result. With 4 after market crossbars, and mounting kits for my hi-lift and my Maxtrax, it feels like a great solution. To recap what I might have done differently:
- Ordered at leat 4 aftermarket crossbars to begin with.
- Removed my factory crossbars off the bat.
- Figured out a good approach for my ski rack. The solution I have is fine, but I bet there is a better way to integrate with the aftermarket crossbars. At some point I may have a similar issue with my roof top bike rack – I rarely use it (I have a 2 bike hitch mount) but on the occasion I want to carry 3 bikes I will probably also have to fall back to my old Thule crossbars and bike trays (which is no different than before I added the custom cross bars).
Photo shows the result. I may look into a low profile box to mount as well to carry recovery straps etc, but as is I’m happy with how it turned out. Thanks to LFD Offroad for providing this solution.
No renumeration was provided for any product mentioned in this post.