Ooops... is my topper done for?

Hi all, I have been lurking around this forum for years learning all kinds of things about overlanding and off-roading. It is a trove of information!

Yesterday I decided I wanted to add some racks to a fiberglass cap I have on my truck. I am thinking about mounting bike racks, ski racks, and maybe an awning or a cargo box up there. I pulled some that were in good shape off a mercury mountaineer at a junk yard, and bolted them to my truck topper. I had read a few threads on here about the process and everything went pretty well. Unfortunately, after doing the install, I read about the existence of the topper core... .... You guessed it, I bolted straight through it with no crush reinforcement. I didn't go crazy on the torque on the bolts, just snug with a philips.

So the question is: how bad is it that I have roof racks bolted through the core? Are we talking catastrophic failure fly off at 80mph or might develop cracks and leak? The latter is a chance I am willing to take, but I REALLY don't want to cause an accident because I am too cheap to buy a new topper.

Thanks for the help all. I wish I had done more reading before I drilled holes in this thing!

 

here is a picture of the bolts sticking into the topper. I plan to cut them down to length and plastidip them for a little head protection.

 

What does the rest of it look like ? That thing is in really bad shape .

 

It's far from pretty, but that picture makes it look worse than it is.

 

The light hanging from the ceiling I removed to make sure I didn't drill through it.

 

Some aluminum flat bar would help spread the load and lessen the chance of a single bolt ripping out

 

So I understand @hoarder23: Are you saying this is an issue you have dealt with before, and it requires reinforcing, or are you just saying why not add some extra reinforcement?

 

Somewhere in between the two. With your current setup if you mount something that creates lift or flutters there is a large chance of the nut being pulled through the shell. Using flat bar spreads that load over a much larger area and prevents one area from being overloaded.

 

Ok, sounds like I should fix my mistake here. Here is what I am thinking I am going to do:

1) Remove the rack
2) Drill out holes to 1/2" (they are 1/4" now)
3) Fill the holes with epoxy putty and allow to cure
4) Drill the holes to 1/4" out of the epoxy putty
5) Reinstall with aluminum bar backing

I think that should make it pretty bomb proof...

 

Making the hole bigger isn't going to help, just seal the holes and add the bar

 

Thanks for all your help here, I really appreciate it. Just to make sure we are understanding each other here is my understanding: The reason my installation is a problem is because I drilled through the core which can compress because it only has half the fiberglass material thickness on either side of cardbord. I have read in a few other places that you can fix this problem by creating a compression ring out of epoxy to bolt to. In order to create the compression ring you need to clear out the material around the hole where the bolt is going to go. The epoxy is there to transfer the load from the interior layer of fiberglass to the exterior layer.