Anyone have their light bar attached to thier factory roof rack?

Anytime. I also put steel on the inside of the rack where the brackets are riveted. You will get some wind noise, BUT

All you need to do is wedge some small rubber strips in the bottom two back fins on the ends, that's stops the vibrations and noise

 

Dane and Chris, I was planning on using a .025 thick piece of aluminum as a backing plate. With bolts washers and locking (nylon) nuts. Do you think .025 will be enough? Dane, How thick was your steel back plate?

Dane, Could you take a picture of the rubber just so I could get an idea of the length?

Thanks,
Nick

 

I assume you're talking about how thick the actual rack is.
Its probably 1/8" or a little more. Sadly I don't have anymore pictures of this install, but if you back it with that plate, and with the thickness of the rack itself, you should be good. What are you going to make the brackets themselves out of?

 

I'm using the Rough Country Mounts

 

The point of a backing plate/fender washer is to spread the stress of the vibrations that the brackets will transfer to the plastic of the roof rack. If the 22ga aluminum is thick enough to not flex when you tighten the nuts/bolts, it should help.
I just used stainless steel fender washers. Because I moved mine back, one washer on each side had to get flattened to clear.

 

Did you just rivet the metal to the roof rack? And if u did, did it hold? Or what did you do to secure the rivet to the roof rack