[fordem]

Car is a five door SQ series GV with roof rails that rattle - has anyone else experienced this and how did you fix it?

The vehicle has crossbars clamped to the rails and is setup to take a cargo basket/rack, quickfist shovel holders on the driver's side and an awning on the passenger side - at this time the only thing fitted is the awning.

The play has been there for as long as I've had the car, and it's never really bothered me until I installed an awning, which sits at the extreme end of the crossbars on the passenger side - the weight of the awning (12~14 kg) is just enough to cause the rails to "bang" on every bump and pot hole - and I'm concerned about the repeated banging wearing the extrusions through.

I have not experienced the Australian "corrugations" but we have something I believe is similar - what we call a "washboard ripple" (google washboard ripple or washboard road) and a few miles of that is guaranteed to shake anything loose off the vehicle.

It seems to me that there is about 3mm play between the rails and the feet and this allows for some amount of movement - I've removed the whole kit & caboodle from the vehicle - the feet are some sort of alloy casting and appear to have a taper which slides into what I think are tubular aluminum extrusions - there was some sort of sticky residue on the tapered portions and on the inside of the rails, so there may have been some sort of caulk or silicone which has deteriorated with heat & time.

Any suggestions?

Edit...

Perusal of the FSM & parts manuals suggests that the rails & the feet are supplied as a single unit - so maybe the sticky residue was an adhesive of some sort?

[Built4thrashing]

Have you tried remove the covers off the feet and tighten the bolts holding it to the roof.

[fordem]

That's not where it's loose and rattling - the foot has a stub approximately two inches long that slides into the end of the rail and that is where the looseness is.

As I mentioned I took everything off the roof - if it had been loose at the bolts I would have found that during the removal.

If you shake your rails, is there any movement at all?

[tonyevans]

Mine were a little loose so I put a layer of silicone tape on the tounge and pushed it in tight - has been OK for a year or so and we have corrugated roads every day

[fordem]

Silicone tape - is that the "self fusing" stuff? Right now I'm considering epoxy putty - if I can find it in this backwater country I live in - I do have self fusing silicone tape, I might try that if I don't find the putty.

I check the rails on my friend's GV - very slight movement, a lot less than mine has.

[Chop]

Mine has movement, but it doesn't rattle. I remember seeing a gv in the wreckers that had screws through them, most likely to stop the same thing.

[tonyevans]

fordem wrote:

Silicone tape - is that the "self fusing" stuff? Right now I'm considering epoxy putty - if I can find it in this backwater country I live in - I do have self fusing silicone tape, I might try that if I don't find the putty.

I check the rails on my friend's GV - very slight movement, a lot less than mine has.

Yes that is the stuff.

[fordem]

Chop wrote:

Mine has movement, but it doesn't rattle. I remember seeing a gv in the wreckers that had screws through them, most likely to stop the same thing.

Now that never crossed my mind - I'm not certain I want to go that way - to do it properly would mean drilling & tapping the alloy feet and possibly "helicoiling" it for strength - I wonder if it could be done on the underside - and then assemble and fit...

Edit...

I took a quick look at the feet on my way out of the house this morning - there is a rectangular hole, so to speak, lengthwise through them, so the idea of drilling & tapping is a "no-go", not enough material, but, it might be possible to drill from the underside into that hole and fit a thin rectangular nut in there, and that might allow a screw & nut to be used, and the screw head would be concealed underneath the rail, making it virtually undetectable - of course this would have to be done with the rails removed from the vehicle.

I'm beginning to like the sound of this - I will explore further this evening - maybe use this idea along with the silicone tape...

[fordem]

The rectangular hole in the feet is perfectly sized for rack "cage nuts" after the cage has been removed, so the current plan is to use two screws & nuts per foot - I'm not too sure on the silicone tape though, if it were to compress after the assembled rack has been installed, it might require removal to tighten the screws. Whilst I have the rail apart I plan on running a 14ga cable through the rail - that can conservatively accommodate 15A, which would be enough for a decent LED bar to be fitted at a later date - the cable can be "sneaked" under the drip channel from the rear foot to the tail gate and then in 6mm split loom alongside the door seal down to the opening for the rear door wiring, making it almost unnoticeable.

I also asked this question in a couple of US based forums, and it seems that no one over there has loose rails - which might just be because they use a different rail assembly, which I suspect may have plastic feet - the Australian market gets the same rail my car has.

[fordem]

Just in case anyone is following this - or - has the same problem and wants to quiet the rattle.

The taper on the feet where they slide into the rails is there to allow for "misalignment" - if you screw the feet firmly against the base of the rail, they will not sit flush against the roof - a single screw & nut allows just enough "wiggle" room that you can pull the foot against the roof with the mounting nuts. I also applied silicone caulk liberally around the tapered tongue before inserting it into the rail.

There is no noticeable movement right now and the silicone has not cured yet, so hopefully this is the end of that rattle - tomorrow after the silicone has cured I will trim off the excess and install the covers.