Legal disclaimer: Use any of the information below at your own risk.
I knew I needed a roof rack a year ago when I ordered Gidget and went through several design ideas in my head ...
Then I saw the post by Oliver ...
Yay! No fabrication needed on my part !! So off to Rack-It! I go (our local rack experts) ... and tell them what I need ... they look up the car and there's no official config. They don't want to sell me anything and they didn't want to do a darn thing to help me figure it out. Nice customer service ... well - I just told them what I needed based on Oliver's post and $400 later I had what I needed.
The fit-up didn't go very well ... there's the add-on kit to space the rear bar further back and given the contour of the front of the door, the width of the front posts and rear posts were different and the front posts needed to be at a bit of an angle so really, nothing squared-up good enough to where I was comfortable installing the extension kit. Back the extension kit went and $110 went back into my pocket! The rear bar fits really nice with the Q34 clips just behind the fixed-glass in the door:
Nothing special to do there, the spacing between mounts is 36" (I believe it's the M3 distance in the installation instructions)
The front, however, is a bit of a trick. After a substantial amount of thought (this was one of those rare times it's actually required! ... and yes, it hurt)
I figured if the bar itself is bent just slightly, then it will kick the Q towers over to the correct angle so that they sit flat on the body and the clips are normal (90 degrees) to where they grab the window frame.
(Oh - by the way, the clips slide between the seal and the body)
A couple measurements and a little trigonometry later and I came up with a 3.2 degree angle would put the towers where they need to be. Now the choice here is A) put the bend in the middle of the bars (easiest), or put half that bend (1.6 degrees) at the ends. The latter (1.6 degrees at each end) is the much better solution because it leaves the main length of the bar parallel to the rear bad - much better for clamping things.
Here's the dimensions you need:
Tangent of the radius should be at least 6" from each end of a 48" cross-bar.
The most you should bend is 2 degrees.
The front Q towers should be about 4" from the front of the polycarb roof.
The best way to mount them is to loosen the screws that hold the bar, tape one Q tower in place, insert one end of the bar into the tower then slide the other tower on the other side. Position that where it needs to be (with the bar loose) by rotating the bar until the tower sits nice. I positioned it so the tower cushions are just a little bit under the radius at the top of the roof as it goes to the polycarb (you'll see what I mean).
Once you have the tower placed, tape it in place also ... now measure the amount of the bar sticking out on each tower and adjust so they are equal. It's a bit of a pain because the towers want to move so just move a little bit at a time. You'll probably find if you snug up the screws that hold the bar on
one side, it'll be easier (loosen, adjust, tighten, measure, repeat)
Once everything is aligned, tighten up the screws that hold the bar. You'll need to get Q127 clips for the fronts ... the Q34's are too long. Install the clips, fasten down the racks and you're ready to go!
One note about bending the bar ... it's pretty thick so it takes some effort, and because it's plastic-coated it doesn't fit normal tooling for tube benders. I had a heck of a time finding someone here to bend it accurately and I finally gave up my search as I was spending more time on that than what the bars cost. My final solution? I went into Home Depot with my bar, found a 1" conduit bender in the electrical section, and did the bends myself. This bender will mess-up the plastic on the bars so it isn't pretty, but it works. I accidentally bend the bar a tad too much but a little rotation on installation and it fit fine. Speaking of rotation, the two bends need to be in the same plane, so use two colors of paint (I used red and blue) ... clamp the bar to a flat surface and use a 90 degree something (an edge of a magazine will do) at the center of the tube and dab the top blue, and the bottom red. Repeat for the other side. This way, when you do your bends, you do them in the right direction and in the same plane. When you put the tube in the bender, red is at the ground and blue is up, as close to vertical as you can get. Bend, take the tube out, turn it around, and bend the other side. Easy though - don't over bend!
Here's what mine looked like installed:
Now after all that, I was over at Rack-It! and Yakima now has an official configuration for the Fortwo with all the dimensions and everything. They call for using Q116 clips which would work fine for the rear mount but I found them to be about an inch too long for the front which is why I went with the Q127's.
Long story short - you can now go to any place that carries Yakima racks and get them to fit ... personally, I don't see how they can fit right without the bend and I'm happy with what I have, but hey - if the manufacturer says this is how it works, go for it and if anything happens you can go after them. Anything I said here is "use at your own risk". Now it'll be interesting to see who puts what on top of their little Smartie ... I've got a 13' kayak ... lol ...
Parts list:
4 Q towers (4 in a box)
2 48" load bars (1 pair)
2 Q34 clips (2 in a box)
2 Q127 clips (2 in a box)
One last note ... they make a lot of noise ... I'm going to get the fairing and see if that helps. Also, it was a breezy day when I test drove them, but you can tell they are on when you drive - they affect the aerodynamics. I'm not keeping them on unless I'm carrying something. I want all the mpg's I can get! :-)
Installed:
Today
Linear Mode
