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you can totally do this, mount the feet and groovetek first, insert bars and finish it up. use a blanket to protect your roof

 

Perfect! Website doesnt have instructions for Bravo yet. Is that coming soon?

 

Ok I bought it! Direct email sent. Thanks.

 

Thanks B!...yes Drew is hooking me up, now that I hooked him up with an order ;-).

I appreciate your PMs with me (they owe you a finders fee...hint hint)...once my rack's through production and delivered I'll post my experience to my build thread and post here as well. I hope you don't mind I copied much of what you did as your Taco looks absolutely perfect (better than the one on their site)...see you at the next meet up.

 

I did it solo. What I did was build it on the ground. Then put in a blanket/cardboard covering the entire top of the truck. Then putting it on as best I could.

 

See, I told you guys lumber was a prime candidate for Uptop use! Here’s ~1000lbs on my FJ. But it had a full length Gobi and I was only traveling as far as the nearest Lowes. That mess turned into a 4x8 lawnmower shed.

 

The actual lace plate for the handle is exactly 6.0" wide. The distance hole to hole for the m8 fasteners is 5.25".

 

So how is was the thin fin to install??I'm super nervous about it and have a camping trip planned this weekend actually but my racks aren't on yet.let me ask you this.Do you think it's possible to install the rack first, and leave that one load bar off that hits the shark fin and go back at a later date and then so the thin fin?bc i may have no choice due to time restrictions . @Doozy4212

 

Yup - this is exactly what I did!

 

Nice, so you actually did install the rack first as I said and then the thin fin??Is the thin fin as bad as I am worried it is lol??..

 

Yep! I built the rack on the ground and then put a blanket on the roof and set it in place. Looking back I would have built it on the truck starting with the mounting feet. Specifically cuz I made a mess with the sealant when setting the rack in place. I left off the rear-most cross bar to clear the shark-fin

Re-assembly of the interior was the hardest part about the thin-fin. Just getting the tabs and clips seated correctly is a bit tedious so the whole thing took me about 2 hours

I took off the B and C pillars completely to run the wires along the passenger side floor (I choose passenger since the drivers side was getting crowded with wires).

 

So that's part of what I'm confused about, what wires did you have to run especially to the front?I'm confused as to why/how we cant just change the fin to the flush plate and it connect into the factory wiring harness/connector??

 

So - the base of the stock shark fin is reused which is where the AM/FM and XM antennas are. What you need to do with the base is solder a piece of wire to the spot where the "areal" is inside of the stock shark fin to act as the actual antenna.

The rest of the wires were for additional lights. So if you're not adding any lights then you don't need to run any wires. Just disassemble the B and C pillars enough to drop the headliner to reach an arm in to where the antenna attaches.

 

@Doozy4212 sent me a zip file with a whole bunch of pictures for install of the thinFIN - did he send you those too?

 

No but I'm betting that he will once he sees this lol

 

I refuse, but I can send instructions

 

Oh I see!!Yeah I actually do plan to add 8 scene pods total and the front light bar,so I guess it would be a good idea but I dont have any of the lights yet so I cant run the wires obviously.I wish I could pre run some type of wiring but I'll just have to go back in I suppose. It is what it is

 

I think the directions actually have you install the 7th bar later. I don’t have my kit yet but I read them a few times, you may need to loosen up some of the nearby.

 

I don't have my scene lights installed yet either. All I did was leave about 1 foot of wire out and taped it up to one of the cross bars. So the wire is run out of the thin fin, down the C pillar, and up under neath in to the passenger foot well waiting to be connected.

I didn't want to drop the headliner and remove the thinfin later on to run wires. This way I can add some wire and then connect up the lights on the outside and then just connect switches/power inside and be all set

 

Any possible issues with it not being square if I install directly on truck?