Improving the Cali Raised roof rack

The Cali Raised Premium roof rack has a really nice, well thought-out design. The adjustable valence protects the light bar and reduces wind noise and drag. The rack does a good job of sealing all the way around which also serves to reduce noise and drag. There is one problem I have found with it, though. First, here's a pic of it on my truck:



The rear 2/3rds of the rack sits on steel struts which bolt to the factory roof rack threaded holes. The attachment of the rack to these struts is accomplished by a t-slot nut inserted into the bottoms of two of the rack extrusions and a bolt that threads up into it from below.

During initial installation, this does not cause a problem since you attach the extrusion to the strut when the rack is upside-down and is not yet bolted to the truck. Here and here is where that process is shown in the installation video.

However, if the bolts between the strut and extrusions come loose, or if you need to adjust the rack from side-to-side for good alignment (both scenarios I encountered), it is almost impossible to line up the t-slot nut with the holes and get the bolts threaded back in from below. It is just way too cramped and difficult to line up those pesky t-slot nuts again. If the bolts ever come all the way out of the t-slot nuts, you may actually have to remove the rack from the roof entirely to get them back in.

After the third time needing to make slight adjustments to my rack, I finally became so frustrated that I decided I would fix this once and for all. The fundamental problem is that the bolts thread up into the t-slot nuts from below. What if I could reverse that and have the bolts come down from above? I figured that would solve the issue. I went to the hardware store, extrusion in hand, and found that 1/4" stainless carriage bolts fit perfectly in the extrusion channels.

I ended up buying:

8x 1/4"x1" stainless carriage bolts
8x 5/8" stainless washers
8x 1/4" stainless washers
8x 1/4" stainless nylon lock nuts

Here's how they will fit together:



If the rack is already installed, you have to remove both extrusions which connect to the struts. The carriage bolts get inserted into the extrusions, then a 5/8" washer gets put on because I need a bit more clearance and because there's a bit of the square portion of these carriage bolts which sticks beyond flush with the extrusion.

Then, each set plops back down on the four struts. As you can see these 1" carriage bolts are a bit long, but they do not really cause an issue. Worst case I will have to remove the extrusion if I want to unbolt the struts from the roof. I bet half inch carriage bolts would be better if you can find them:



And a 1/4" washer and lock nut goes on from below:



From here, just align the rack, tighten, and you're done:




This fix is more secure than the factory Cali Raised solution, so I wanted to share with anyone who might be struggling with this otherwise excellent roof rack.

Edit: All the CaliRaised hardware rusted on this thing in a single Colorado summer. Not cool. They bragged about their black hardware, but it’s just cheap oxide over carbon steel.

 

I was thinking about getting this rack for my Gen 2. I know many posts here hate on their lights, which is fine, but did you get your bar from them or elsewhere?

 

My light bar is an ExtremeLED 39" dual color bar.

 

I bought the premium rack with the 360 lighting, had nothing but issues installing it. Nothing would line up and the allen bolts are a pain in the butt to tighten after it is assembled. Wish I would have ran across this post before hand. Might swap out the bolts. I got to say I reached out to Cali Raised Support with the following issues: The sides of the rack where about 1 mm off the roof (was worried if I put weight on it it would flex and hit the paint), sun roof hit the second extrusion bar, Wiring harness (garbage btw) isn't long enough to go across the engine bay and reach the combo Led bar (wire comes out the passenger side which does not have a connector on the end of it) there was zero adjustability with the rack forward or backwards, the back bar hits and rests on the antenna.

The first person I spoke with genuinely tried to help me. He forwarded me an email to the VP of Engineering and he basically said (VP that is) that I needed to drop my headliner and either replace the antenna with a smaller one or try to adjust the antenna forward. In regards to the sun roof I basically needed to remove the rack measure how far it opened and they would look into taller spacers. After a while the CEO (Blake Hamar) started in on the thread. He gave me a lecture on how and why people do roof racks and that if I absolutely needed my sun roof then remove the second extrusion. (Which by the way would eliminate the front LED Light pods). Long story short I told the CEO that, that was not an acceptable answer and I bought the premium rack at a premium price and expected a premium fit which it is not at all. He made ZERO attempt to make it right through out the whole conversation. I would think twice about Cali Raised products they have zero support to back them up and treat there customers like garbage. CEO. They act like I am the first person ever to tell them I can't open my sun roof, the CEO even wanted me to explain why I needed it. As a customer I don't and will not explain why I want to use functionality on my truck the site make no mention about either not using the sun roof or drop the front LED pods. I have purchased several of there other products in the past and after this I will never do it again. Think twice about it folks, if you expect a premium fit think again. Treating the customer like garbage starts at the top with this company.

 

I didn't realize other people had been having bad experiences with their light bars too.

I've got their 42" slim light bar and about a month after initial install I got some major water intrusion. I called customer service and was told that it wasn't a big deal, the light bar has a "gore vent" that will allow the moisture to evaporate.

At this point I had already sent in pics showing just how much water was inside the light and reiterated to customer service just how bad the water intrusion was and she told me this was normal. I asked her to confirm that this was an acceptable level of moisture inside the lens because I was preparing to post her comments on TW. Only then did she backtrack and say they would provide me a replacement light bar.

I'm grateful that I did get a replacement but I shouldn't have to bully a CS rep to replace what is clearly a faulty product. I won't be dealing with them again in the future.

And if you're wondering it took me about 5 weeks between reporting the problem, getting the replacement light bar, and installing/rewiring the the new one. In that time the moisture situation behind the lens only got progressively worse. So much for that gore vent.

Pics from when I first noticed the problem: