Custom RCP Fit Kit for 4 Rhino-Rack RC and RV Series Roof Rack Legs - Fixed Mounting Points

Video Transcript for Rhino-Rack Vortex Aero Roof Rack Installation - 2019 Ford Explorer

Hey everybody, how's it going Today we're gonna be going over and showing you how to install the Rhino-Rack Vortex Aero crossbar system, here on our 2019 Ford Explorer. So this is what our crossbar system is gonna look like installed. Now for starters, we'd have the black crossbars on our vehicle here 'cause our vehicles black matches a little bit better. It's also offered in a silver option as well. It really just comes down to preference, whichever you feel will look better on your vehicle. So, with the Rhino-Rack Vortex Aero crossbars, we're gonna have an arrow shape.

And what this arrow shape does is it does a couple of different things. Number one, it cuts down on wind noise, a lot of crossbar systems that use those square blocky crossbars can really get kind of noisy up here on your vehicle. You really not gonna have too much of an issue with that, due to this arrow design, obviously it's gonna be more aerodynamic. So they're also not gonna take as big a hit with our miles per gallon. So adding a Fracture Explorer, it's a great versatile option.

It's gonna allow us to do many different things. We can pretty much carry anything we want up here. We could definitely put some kayaks up here, a cargo box or even a bike rack. We're gonna have endless possibilities here with our roof rack. So, I'm sure you've noticed that we have these giant channels running down the center of our crossbars, and these are gonna be great for our roof mounted channel accessories.

So basically what this does is it makes it a little bit easier to secure your accessories to the crossbars. You don't have to worry about the wraparound clamps tightening each side. Sometimes there can be up to four equal side. The channel is gonna be nice integrated seamless into the crossbar. It's usually only one to two fasteners per side.

We also not gonna have a ton of space between the bottom of the crossbar and the top of our roof. There's actually only a couple of inches here. Therefore it may require the channel Mount accessories for certain application. A lot of the times we have these U bolts, or even these locking knobs here that we have to manipulate, could still be possible but it's gonna be a little bit harder when we don't have as much space. So these integrated channels here are gonna be an awesome feature here to this crossbar system. So, in regards to weight capacity, we're gonna be 165 pounds evenly distributed across both crossbars. So, in regards to installation, we're gonna get pretty lucky here on our Explorer because it actually uses factory fixed points here on the inside of these rails. Therefore, installation is super easy, we don't have to worry about attaching any door clips that go inside and damage our weather seal possibly everything's gonna be right up here on the roof. It's super easy to install. And again, we get this seamless look with the factory fixed points. So before we start our installation, what we like to do is we just like to get everything out of the box here, lay it down in front of you and then explain what everything is. So, first we have our crossbar here. It's pretty self-explanatory what that does. Next thing we have here is gonna be our mounting feet. Now we have to show, so this is our mounting foot. We have this square nut here which actually goes into the channel on our crossbar and then we'll have an Allen head underneath the tight-knit. So we're gonna have two of these per bar, we're also gonna have our locking in caps here, they get installed over there like so and then we can lock and remove them with the included key. Then next we have the fit kit. So to a roof rack, you're gonna have three components, the cross bars, the mounting feet and the fit kit. What the fit kit does is pretty much attached to everything for this particular vehicle here. We're gonna have fixed mounting points that this installs into using these two holes here, and then our mounting feet are gonna connect to the top of the fit kit using this hole here. So this mounts on the vehicle our mounting fee attached to the fit kit and then our crossbars attached to the mounting feet. You're also gonna notice a few other things in your kit here. So we have these little protective caps. So these are gonna get installed on top of the fit kit and we don't have our system installed. So meaning when we have the crossbars and mounting feet removed, we can still leave the fit kit on the vehicle here and protect it from any issues using these protective caps. We're also gonna get all the tools we need for our installation, we're gonna have the security torques bit. We're also gonna have the security Allen bit. You'll need both of these to complete this installation. And then the last two things we have here, we have these protective strips so if we turn our crossbars over, we're gonna see the half channels here on either side on the bottom of our crossbar. These are actually gonna install inside these channels here to provide an extra level of protection. So, once we get our mounting feet in the correct position, tightening everything down, we'll measure the distance we have between here and here. I'll cut the strip accordingly and install it in there. And then finally we have the in caps to our crossbar. So these are actually locking, they come with the key here. Basically, they just install in the outside ins of our crossbar here. Stop anything from being able to slide off our crossbar for using the channel mount accessory. And again, just keeping our crossbars nice and free from any corrosion or dirt. So we're gonna take our crossbar now to start our installation. The side that goes up is gonna have our Rhino-Rack sticker on there. We're just gonna flip it over to the bottom side, and again the bottom side is gonna be the one with our half channels here. Probably more, only a quarter of the crossbar actually. But then we're gonna take one of our mounting feet here, along with our hex security tool, but what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna line up that channel nut here inside the channel of our crossbar. Keep in mind we want the connection point to be facing outward. So not like this, like this. We'll just slide that on. So right now we don't know where we need to secure this, it could come in more, it could come out more. So don't wanna fully tighten this down, but we also don't want the mounting feet sliding around on this when we're trying to get it on the vehicle, so I'm just gonna snug up our fastener here. So we want it to be snug, but we still wanna be able to move it, so about like this should be fine. Now have on the other side, install our other foot. And then once we have both of our mounting feet installed, we'll come back with our end caps here, insert those into the end of the crossbar, take our key and turn it to lock it in place. So now we're going to assemble our fit kit. Here's what our fit kit looks like fully assembled. It's gonna be composed of two parts. We have the rubber foot here and then we have the actual metal portion. So the way this installs it's simply gonna slide in that channel. And then you're gonna have these little plastic or rubber tabs on the bottom that will push up through that middle opening there. Now, we already installed the front crossbar but we're gonna show you guys how to do the rear one. So you're gonna notice if we look inside the silver rail here, we're gonna have two sets of points. Two sets here, and two sets here. We can actually install our crossbar into either one, it's really gonna be preferenced depending on what sort of things you're carrying, if you have larger boats like kayaks, you may wanna use the ones that are spread further apart, just really depends on what we're gonna be carrying. But for demonstration purposes, we're just gonna go ahead and install it in this closest one. So we're gonna take the security torque smith that comes in our key here. We're gonna be removing these two caps here. So it's just a little plastic torque nut or Torx screw here. So I want to be careful, we don't damage it when removing it but they're pretty easy to get out. We'll start it with our tool and we should be able to remove the rest of it by hand. Here's what that looks like. So go ahead and get this other one out and then repeat that same process on the other side. So now we're gonna get our hardware ready, we're gonna take one of our security Torx bolts, put on a split lock washer and follow that up with a flat washer. We'll need two of these for this one side. So once we get these ready, we'll take our fit kit here, line up our holes and then thread in our hardware. Now, we're just taking our security key here, just tighten down our two Torx bolts. So now all we did is we simply went ahead and took our crossbar assembly and set it onto the fit kit here. We did have to adjust the feet a little bit but we knew we we're gonna have to do that beforehand. Basically, what are we gonna do now is we're gonna measure the distance from the edge of the crossbar to the beginning of that foot there. We just wanna make sure that's even on both sides. And then we can go ahead and take the bolt in our kit here. We're gonna get four of these smaller bolts here, we're gonna place a split lock washer on, follow that up with a flat washer, then when we see we can actually secure the mounting foot to our fit kit here. Now we'll just take our 10 millimeter wrench here. Let's go ahead and finish tightening that down. So now a couple more things we have, we're gonna take our locking in cap here or the cover rather for a mounting foot. Snap that into place, then we can lock it, and then finally, we're gonna take our Allen head security key here, we're gonna come underneath our mounting foot here, we have a little bit of an opening and we'll basically just tighten up that center bolt there to further secure our crossbar to the mounting feet. And that'll do it today for a look and installation of the Rhino-Rack Vortex Aero crossbar system here on our 2019 Ford Explorer..