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In April, 2015 I finally decided to try to move the luggage bar back, so
that a full size trunk will fit with the rack still in the up position.
This began when I found a free old trunk on Craigs list. The trunk
was pretty beat up, but was authentic and seemed waterproof. The
original placement of the racks looks funny (to me) and too deep in the
down position, and too close to the back wall of the car (8 inches or
so) for a trunk while upright. First, the result. |
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I still have to re-mount a third brake light somewhere back there. |
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Note the 4 or 5 washers on the top mount - to bring the rack more up and
down. Not elegant, but
I left them when I made the extension.. |
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Find in This Page...
4 foot by 1 inch by 3/16 inch steel bar from Home Depot - about $10. Cut
in half to make the 2 brackets.
Hard to bend, and not likely you would stand on the
luggage rack using these, but ok for looks.
I still have to fill in the hole where I moved the gas filler (that
story appears elsewhere on the Annex site.)
Turns out that after building the fiberglass top, I threw away EVERY
SINGLE bit of fiberglass scraps I had left over. |
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I allowed a 1/2 inch for making the bends, but probably did not need
that much material. I made the second bends to match
the first piece, so at least they were both about the same.
Bends - heavy vice, hammer (Google suggested a heavier mallet, and I
agree) and I used a large pipe wrench to help
get leverage to bend the material as I beat on the corner with the
hammer |
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The bar was too long, and an opening had to be left to slide the bracket
over the bumper.
Top left hole centered in a 1 inch space, then 1/2 for the bend, then 5
inch for the top, another half inch bend
then the bottom left hole in a 1 inch square space, then 3 inches to the
next hole and down a couple more
inches to clear the bottom bumper bar. |
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Here is the trial fit, where I discovered a couple of things. With the
bracket more or less rectangular, the rack set too high and
got in the way of the trunk clasps, so I bent both of the horizontal
bars downward about an inch (and re-angled the back ends
so they would be straight up and down), lowering the top of the rack a
bit.
I also could have left a longer "ear" at the top rear,
and drilled the holes an inch further down, so the rack would mount a
little lower than the car side. |
| If you look at the top finished product, you can see the mounts
slant downhill a bit so the rack clears those clasps on the trunk. |
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