Sherpa Grand Teton roof rack owners

Hi Sherpa peeps... I have a couple questions for y'all since this seems to be the most active Sherpa thread going. I bought a rack a few months ago and am finally getting ready to put it all together. I got it un-painted since I am making some pretty extensive mods. I'll post more as it goes together, but I am planning to assemble it and then get it powder coated as an assembly. That and some of my mods will make it not adjustable... SO....
1. anybody have an 'ideal gap' at the center of the roof for the wind deflector?
2. as an extra precaution, I'm going to use sealant - what sealant do you like best? Was thinking sikaflex.
Thanks for your input!!!

 

I'm not sure what you mean by gap at the center of the roof. Do you mean where to have the wind faring adjusted to? My rack is pushed all the way back and my faring is all the way down as low as it can go. I still have a space between the roof and the wind faring but it is so small that water cant even get threw it. It ends up draining off the sides. I might need to adjust mine up just a little but no noise as of right now. And if you are talking about sealant on the bolts holding it to your truck there is no need. they a fitted and sealed with rubber and crush washers that make a perfect seal and wont have to worry about water leaking in the roof.

 

Talking about this gap:

 

O yeah that all depends on where you can get it to mount. With my 2nd gen I can shift the rack all the way back and front all the way down for less wind noise. Every truck might be a little differnt though. You might not be able to go to the same place as mine. I would just mount it all up and adjust it as need be. You should be able to have the faring pretty low though.
Here is where mine is sitting.

 

Which ever feel comfy and doesn’t make windy sounds n shit

 

LOL. Well, yes, exactly.

 

My GFC gets in the way of sliding it that far back... but I should be able to do some creative jimmying... I'm guessing as close to the roof as possible will keep it quiet. Thx!

 

don't use sealant, I've installed sherpa racks on 2 trucks now, just follow the torque spec, 0 chance any water intrusion, the trucks been through many rain storms

 

In my experience, where keeping water out is a thing, there is no such thing as certainty. LOL. But I hope you're right!

 

The way sherpa's rubber foot is designed, it's pretty much like a crush washer, I mean it won't hurt to put silicon, but not necessary. The thing about silicon is that once you put in there, you will never get it out.

FWIW, I did put blue loctite in every thread screw connection when possible during sherpa assembly, that I think is even better than silicon

 

Got my side plates back from SendCutSend - pretty happy. There is a slight difference from the prints I made to check my profile, so not sure if that's SCS or my printer, but I think they're close enough. Did a little fit check - time to drill some holes in the truck!

 

man those raw aluminum racks look very nice, if I had a silver or white truck, they would fit pretty well

 

Getting closer...

I just have to
- finish relieving the front cross bar and then mock up a bigger shield thing...
- make my light brackets
- make some brackets to hold the water tube
- drill holes in the truck...
Then powder coat the whole thing!

 

What are those side plates for? I thought the rack came with them

 

It does, but I wanted to cut those big notches out of the side plates and the Sherpa trees and the slots were in the way... one thing lead to another. Lol

 

This came out awesome! Nicely done

 

How do GFC owners feel about these racks? I'm thinking about picking one up with their black friday sale.

 

They make a great product. The Animas/access cab/GFC combo means you will have a fun time drilling the rear mounting holes if you don’t lift up your gfc… I’ll let you know how it goes when I do mine!

 

Keep us posted! I need to update my bio/signature photo since I now actually have a 3rd gen DCSB Sounds like the install will be a little easier.

 

Well, it took forever but finally back from the powder coater. Hopefully we get a break from the rain and I can get it on the truck this weekend!