FitchVA.com

Surco Roof Rack

February 17 2010 | Posted in: Exterior

When I went to go pick up a Dana 44 out of a 1989 XJ, the owner also showed me a Surco roof rack he was trying to sell. I had thought about getting a roof rack of some type or another and when he told me the price, I couldn’t turn it down. It also came with 4 off road lights that I eventually replaced, but were OK for a few months.

The rack is 45″ wide and 60″ long. That size seems to fit the XJ roof nicely if you’re going for, what I consider, a full length roof rack.

The rack came with the “J100″ mounting brackets/bars. The J100 brackets bolt to the rack and clamp onto the factory roof rails. Some people experience problems with this setup when the factory rails separate from roof because of the weak connection between the rails and the roof. I have not had any issue with this setup. I have seen posts on the XJ boards about how Jeep changed the way in which they mounted the rails to the roof around 1997. They said they changed it to a stronger metal mount and went away from a plastic style mount. Surco does make a mounting system that uses the gutter rails rather than the roof rails.

Overall, I’m very pleased with the rack. It’s light-weight enough to were it’s easy for me to take the rack off by myself with little effort. However, it being a light-weight rack comes with some drawbacks. It’s not rated to carry as much weight as some of the other heavier metal racks are rated for. For me, this hasn’t been an issue. I try to keep all of the heavy stuff as low as possible to help with off-camber situations. I keep a shovel, ax, and hi-lift on there with no issues. Occasionally, I put my 32″x11.50″ spare tire up there for around town and long trip driving when I need the extra interior space. I’ve also used it to stand on while taking pictures with no ill effects.

Here are a few pictures from different angles taken the day I bought it:

I found that it really helps to have the factory cross rails under the unsupported ends of the tire. Without them, I found the rack would rattle and wobble when I hit bumps with the tire up top. The previous owner also added a piece of angle across the rack where the tire hits to add a little more extra support:

The original owner didn’t use the Surco light tabs. Instead, he just mounted them directly to the rack, bending the light’s joint 90 degrees so they pointed up. This worked, but didn’t allow me to fine tune the pointing direction left to right. But I sure as heck didn’t want to pay what Surco wanted for light tabs. Here’s my cheap fix:

Light Mount/Tabs

I went out to Lowe’s and picked up a 3′ stick of angle that had predrilled holes throughout it. Then bolted it to the front of the rack using the holes that were used originally to mount up each light:

I do not have any closeup pictures of the lights mounted, but they’re simply bolted down to the flat part of the angled metal. I really liked this mount because all of the predrilled holes allowed me to move the lights around with different spacing. It was also painted with Rust-Oleum Hammered Finish before the final install.
I also was too cheap to pay the high dollar price Surco wanted for the other accessory mounts, so I went about making my own as well. It wasn’t the cleanest solution, but I used materials I had laying around and they’ve worked great so far.

Shovel / Ax Mount:

I had a few small sections of angled metal that had predrilled holes that I decided would work for what I needed. The only difference between this angle and the angle used for my light bar was that these sections had holes/ovals that alternated orientation. But it still worked just fine.

Here are the angle brackets bolted to the rear side of the rack:

Same design/setup for the front:

Now for the shovel and ax. I simply used two small u-bolts from Lowe’s to secure them together. The wing nuts allow them to be taken apart without needing tools: