Yet another roof rack thread

I am deeply apologetic and sincere when I say I'm sorry too to bring this up again...

However, besides the obvious reason of appearance is there any reason to reuse and drill through your your weatherstripping ... as opposed to just removing it completely and saving it for when you remove the rack.

I'm guessing it cost an arm, leg, and 1st born child to get 2 pieces of weather stripping from Toyota

 

It can be very expensive for those parts yes. Leaving them off is not really a issue if you dont care about having 2 trenches on each side of the roof. The only places you would actually see it though is the front and rear windows, the rest is pretty much covered by the rack.

 

Yeah. Aesthetics. Only aesthetics. Well, maybe there’s a wee bit of rain protection for your mount holes too.

 

Alright so I tried to drill through the weather stripping and I determined it was too much of a pain in the ass so I took wire snips and cut it so the spacers would fit for my @upTOPoverland bravo. I then used the same silicone filling the holes and sealing it to adhere the pieces in between. The rest was fine as is.

The roof and rack look better with the weather stripping, more finished. Don’t waste time trying to drill, just cut it as needed cleanly

I have heard a 19mm hammer punch works well but I don’t know first hand

 

I used the punch method on the 2nd Gen and then again on the 3rd Gen.

 

I like the clean look in the front with the weather stripping intact. It took about an hour for me to punch all 8 holes though...

 

The weatherstripping will probably hold more moisture for longer. Get rid of it. Especially in the rust belt.

 

Punch is the easiest, quickest, cleanest method. On the trim piece, snip the metal spine with dykes on either side of where your holes will be and use a boxcutter to remove the rubber channel between the snips. Punch your holes, good to go.

 

The guy I bought my prinsu from drilled his. So he had the holes exposed when he sold the rack. I cut mine on the 2nd gen and reinstalled the missing sections with silicone once I removed the rack. On my 3rd gen I’m just leaving the entire drip molding off. The channel traps water when you drill holes or cut it because the drip molding isn’t designed to drain water if it enters the middle. With the molding completely removed you can blow off the water or dry it and you can’t really tell the molding is missing anyways. The best part is that you have an unmolested drip molding to reinstall.

 

Thanks for the insight. I'm somewhat leaning towards leaving it off, but still curious if anyone has been able to fin d the OEM part number and what Toyota charges.

 

So < $200 to buy new replacements. Not as bad as I imagined. Gives me options.