Simple Roof Rack and Crossbars

Thanks for the updates.

I'm still sitting on the fence with retirement in 2 days and this new reason (new canoe in 2nd pic) to act, but still using our wagon with classic round bars. We have a local shop with huge reputation in water sports and vehicle outfitting where one of their folks now mentioned stuff like your challenges and hesitation doing a DIY solution here but I understand their liability aspect too.

What I might do in short-term is finally update to modern oval crossbars, new towers/clips, and know I can likely move to a Landing Pad type in the future. It's pretty clear in this borrowed pic from a rack seller how this would be solid and some components can be reused. Even if I try what you're doing, it would need some time not available for plans my wife and I have pretty much next week. After my wife returns to work in a few weeks I'll have far more projects time.

The Sherpa stuff is available but I don't know about the permanence of it, would need to pad the bars, and again, time. Now a few sellers have the Yakima roof clips. The paddle shop and REI close have the rest. For those Sherpa bars I'd need to pad them. I have sail/stand board pads, but canoe gunwales would need something made to not have damage.

WAY back to about 1991 I made my own truck topper rack for sailboards and solo canoes with stainless steel reinforcing hardwood crossbars on an aluminum type topper. Repeating that could go on Sherpa mounts but it was one of those DIY projects that was a lot of labor and even materials added up.