Yakima 60" HD Tracks for Roof Racks, OverHaul HD, and OutPost HD

Video Transcript for Yakima HD Roof Rack Tracks Installation - 2023 Nissan Titan XD

Hi everyone. Aiden here with etrailer. Today we're gonna be taking a look at and showing you how to install these Yakima HD tracks for camper shells or truck beds. This is gonna be an easy way to either add a ladder rack to your truck, or add a roof rack to your camper shell. This is a more custom installation, so drilling will be required, but let's check it out. How you use this track will be dependent on your installation.

If you're installing it on a camper shell like this, it's designed to work with a set of Yakima's landing pads, which will slide into the track and give you attachment points for their skyline towers and some crossbars. Or if you're doing this on the rails of a truck bed, there's some adapters that allow you to attach their ladder rack uprights to this track. I think the more common installation for people is gonna be camper shells like this. But just know that if you are doing it on a truck bed application, or maybe even like a small utility camper, then the HD bars would need that separate installation kit. Each track is gonna be made of aluminum.

It can support 110 pounds on each side. So when paired in conjunction with one another, it's gonna be pretty stout. Just keep in mind, there's gonna be a weight capacity on your camper shell, and whatever bars you put up here will have their own capacity too. So just be careful to not overload them. And you're probably wondering how it installs.

It is a pretty simple setup. It's not like it's hard to drill through the camper shell here. The thing I will say is that it just takes some time. You wanna make sure you get your measurements right because if these bars aren't running parallel to each other, it's gonna mean problems down the road when you try to put crossbars on here. So we'll follow along and show you how we did it.

Just take your time, get the measurements right, and the rest is gonna be pretty straightforward. So let's check it out. At the very beginning of your install is probably gonna be the hardest part, because we need to get these rails up here, and make sure they're square, and just positioned on the camper shell appropriately so that we don't have any weird fitment issues. So a couple of the things that we're gonna do, and keep in mind is you wanna find some sort of center point so that you have a solid place to measure from. So on ours up there, we've got a little piece of painter's tape that we'll check out later that we just marked out the center using that third brake light. That's a great point of reference, because this camper shell isn't necessarily a square on the truck, so using some point on the truck isn't gonna be your best bet. It's gonna be different depending on if you have a different camper shell. So keep that in mind. And then also the taper. This does curve off on the edges, so we can only get it so far to one side before it starts to curve too much. At the same time, though, on the inside of the camper shell, if you look up into the roof line there, there's gonna be this ridge. It might be a little hard to see on camera, but most camper shells are gonna have something like this where this middle is reinforced. And for us, we're trying to operate in a pretty narrow window where that track is sitting to the outside edge of that ridge so we're not drilling through it, but also not so far to the edge that it's falling off the edge of the camper shell. So get that position as close as you can on both, and that's gonna be probably the best fit for you. And up top, here's that painter tape that we laid down with a pen mark on that center line. This is gonna serve as a reference point for us throughout the install. And I do have these tracks loosely set up here. Nothing's really securing them, but I did take a step back earlier and just kind of eyeball it. That's the best you can do right now. Make sure that it's not gonna line up with that ridge underneath. And everything looks good here. The other thing to keep in mind is whether or not your camper shell is tapered. So ours does taper off towards the rear a little bit. So we're gonna start our installation at the back. So we need to drill these holes out, get this loosely mounted, and then we can determine our front mounting locations, get things squared up, all of that. But first I'm gonna lay down painter's tape so that everything is protected, and get my side to side in front to back as close and accurate as I can get it. Now I found that the best way to get your measurements is to use a soft roll tape measure, so that over these curved edges of your camper shell, you can get an accurate measurement. Side to side, we utilize that center mark, and I just went from that mark to the center of each bar where the mounting holes are gonna be. Now every measurement's gonna be different depending on your camper shell. In our case today though, 21 and a half inches worked perfectly side to side, and I made sure to take a step back again and make sure that that wasn't going to affect my spacing underneath. Everything looks good. Then we need to measure front to back. Now for that, that's where this soft row came in really handy, because I went to the end, pulled it tight, and right where the window starts on our camper shell was my flat reference point. And for that, we we inchesre looking at six and a quarter inches each side. Now I know that these back locations are centered and pushed far forward the same amount. I did lay down some painter's tape. So what I'm gonna do is just mark out my edges on all three sides, so I can line this back up later, and I'll make a mark in the middle where my mounting location's going to be. With all the markings made, I can confidently move this and know exactly where to put it back. We're gonna start with a very small pilot hole drilling through that center mark where the mounting location will be. We're gonna go really small at a slow speed, and work our way up in very small increments to our final size of a quarter inch. And the reason we're being so careful is just because of this material, we don't want any spiderweb cracking to happen. Starting small is gonna make it a little bit more friendly, and working in small increments lessens that risk. We had great luck over on the other side, so we're just gonna repeat it over here, and that painter's tape will also help. (tool whirs) And we'll just work our way up. (tool whirs) When the final hole is drilled out, I'll come back through and vacuum up all that debris. With those holes drilled to the final size, I can move my bar back in place, just lining it up over top, and pass some of my hardware through. Your kit's gonna come with these screws, flat washers, and just wanna pass that down through the mounting hole. On the underside, we can barely see those threads poking out. Gonna get one of those hand knobs installed, and it's gonna be helpful if you have an extra set of hands to hold an eight-inch Allen key up top while you twist that hand nut below. This rear location, you can get away with doing it yourself, and just don't worry about it too much right now. You don't need to fully tighten this. We just want enough to anchor it. We'll come back later to fully tighten things. With both of these sides loosely secured, I went ahead and tried to eyeball this as best I can to get these rails parallel to one another. The way you can check, though, is by measuring diagonally across from one corner to the next. I've already got painter's tape down, and what I did is just hooked it on the corner of that track there. Here is where an extra set of hands could help, and I measured over to a fixed point like that bolt over on the other corner. And essentially you just want to take that measurement on both diagonals, and see if they match up. If they match up, then we know that our rails are parallel, or that we may be need to adjust some things. Once we've ensured the rails are parallel, mark your locations the same way we did at the back end. When that's done, you can move it out of the way, and repeat the same drilling process that we already saw. Before you drill, it's a good idea that, even though you've taken those diagonal measurements, take some just directly across the camper shell from side to side, both at the front most mounting location and the back most mounting location, and ensure that those measurements are the same too, 'cause one thing that we ran into, the instructions only tell you to do those diagonal measurements, and ours we inchesre spot on. Well, if your rails, let's say they're running parallel, and now they're flared out the exact same amount, like ours were, yeah, your diagonal measurements gonna be the same from one corner to the other, but that doesn't mean that the rails are parallel to each other. It just means that they're angled the exact same amount by measuring straight across at all corners, as well as that diagonal, it's just more assurance that we've got the right measurement. Do that before you drill your holes, and you don't have to make any mistakes. (tool whirs) With the front locations drilled out, I removed the hand nut from the back, moved the rail out of the way, and used it as a straight edge to lay down a new piece of painter's tape from front to back, basically just covering the entire length that this is going to sit. That way when we drill out all of our middle holes, there's that layer of painter's tape for extra protection, and to allow us to mark our holes. So what we need to do is put the hand nut back on the backside, and just repeat that process on the front side, dropping our hardware through, and securing it from underneath. At this point, you will need that extra set of hands to hold the screw from the top. And here's what that rail looks like now, secured by both ends. The middle here is still loose because nothing's fastening it, fastening it in, excuse me, but it's at least sitting where it's gonna live. We can now mark out all those remaining middle holes, and you're just gonna skip every other one. So the very end has a screw through it, skip the next, then the next will be your mounting, then skip, then mount, then skip, then mount. So it'll go like that on both sides, totaling four additional screws on either end. With all the remaining holes marked, we moved the rail back out of the way. We can drill out all the remaining holes, and when everything's drilled out, we can finally take that painter's tape up, and get ready to attach this for real. So I know it's a lot of back and forth, but this is going to be the best way to make sure everything's lined up properly, and keeps your camper shell safe. So you're in the home stretch now. Just get those remaining holes drilled out. (tool whirs) Now with all the holes drilled and the tape removed, we can make sure all of those holes are weather sealed by just putting some silicone around, and making sure that no water can get in. Then whenever we finally put this back on and pass all the hardware through, there's that protective barrier from any water intrusion. Now your kit does come with silicone, but I'm using a tube that we had down in the shop because it's bigger, and I just wanted to make sure I didn't run out. You could always pick up more if you need it, but it's not entirely necessary if you are smart with the one that comes with the kit. I'm just gonna carefully drop down the rail with the two screws in the very end, trying to line this up as best I can with those holes that we drilled out, and make sure that they pass through. And I'm trying to minimize the shifting around here so that we don't smear all of that silicone that we just laid down, and cause it to move from the spot we want it at. Once both ends are in, though, you can go down the line, and add in the remaining hardware. It's just the same combination as we've been using, one screw and one flat plate. And then we need to go back through and repeat the process with an extra set of hands like we did before. Someone holds each screw from the top with that Allen key, and then another is in the truck bed. And using those hand nuts to tighten it up. Only this time we can fully tighten them. I'm gonna do the two ends first, make sure it's all loosely threaded in, and then we can go through, install the middle ones, and fully tighten everything. And of course, repeat that on the other side. With all the hardware tightened down, I always like to give things a shake test, and make sure that nothing is moving around loosely. But this track feels solid, and at this point, we're ready to start hooking up some gear, and we're ready to hit the road. But that'll do it for our look at and installation of these Yakima 60-inch tracks for your camper shells. Thanks for watching.