Baja Rack added

I here that! Thanks.

 

My recent rack installation went okay. I did have some trouble drilling the holes through the plastic/rubber strips after I had pulled them off. There is a metal strip running inside of these and the drill bit kept slipping off to one side or the other even though I preferred the hole to be close to the center, so I used the cone shaped grinding bit on my rotary tool and ground out a hole in each one with relative precision. I had to adjust these a little by enlargening them, but once I threw silicone in there and the mounting brackets went over the strips, it came out very nicely. My first trip to work the next day with the rack was a big surprise. Man was it loud! There was a hum resonating through the whole truck from 40-60 M.P.H. even though everything was tight. It was almost like the sound of blowing across the open top of a beer bottle. Now, imagine someone doing that continuously while you are driving in that speed range. Four days later, I had the troubleshooting narrowed down to the bottom air deflector, I had to pull the rack off to do it, but I flipped the air deflector over, and, voila, the problem was fixed! Even though it doesn't tuck up underneath anymore and extends down an inch or so, it seems to make for a much smoother airflow over the rack. The two deflectors together now form a wedge across the front of the rack, and it is quiet at all speeds. Only a slight whistle can be detected over 60 M.P.H. I don’t know if other Tacoma owners (or Baja Rack owners with other vehicles) have experienced this noise, but I swear by the fix I came up with. It is very clean, and eliminates the lip that appeared when the deflector was positioned the other way. It was almost like an upside down bug deflector, and I'm almost positive that forcing the air down towards the roof of the truck over that lip caused it to hum. My only other complaints with the rack are that it came with one of the steel crossbars bent from shipping (which I was able to bend back), and after I had it finally installed with the modification, I found a little dent under one of the main steel tubes on the driver's side. This is not a huge deal, but for $705 shipped, I had hoped it would be close to perfect out of the box. It’s funny how you can inspect something so thoroughly and then find a flaw with it later on that would have seemed so obvious to discover earlier. I have noticed a loss of 1-2 M.P.G. with my rack and other accessories installed. I am hoping the mileage improves as the truck breaks in, but I can tell you it has felt a little more sluggish at interstate speeds and even wants to shift down on small hills while on cruise control where I don't recall it doing that before.

See my full build here:
http://www.tacomaworld.com/forum/new...oma-owner.html

 

Thanks for the info.

 

Bro, that looks perfect. Low profile, looking sleek! So you just had the yakima rails on your leer, removed them and all the new mounting hardware was included with the Baja rack?

 

Good idea. What gauge?