To Prinsu or Not to Prinsu?

Unfortunately I’ll have to offload everything after each trip. Either that or raise the garage door.

 

Yikes. That’s a pain.

 

Do you have a lift/larger tires? Just wanting to compare clearance…3” is close!

 

I’m on stock Bilstein TRD Pro’s with Westcott perches/shims in the front and CB +3 shackles in the rear. Tires are 295/70/18’s.

It’s definitely close and I can leave the truck outside but it’s peace of mind not having to worry about CA low lifes trying to steal cats, mess with the truck, etc. All about minimizing risk.

 

This gives me hope this spring when I put one on. I’ve got about 6” of clearance now so I think I have enough room to get one on and still park in the garage if I want to

 

Could of any you with a Prinsu rack for a double cab take 2 measurements for me? Length of a cross bar and also the length of the side panel. Would appreciate it. Looking into building my own rack from 80/20 and aluminum stock. Prinsu even sells the wind deflector separately so may just buy that and use it too.

 

Prinsu on CrewMax - let the professionals do the work on this one. Will be nice for extra storage, light bar, and anything else I don’t want in the bed.

Do a lot of snowboarding and mountain biking trips with the fam or friends so fully loaded with 4 people and gear it made sense depending on the situation.

Also have Retrax cover which takes up a little bed space.

 

Just installed it a few days ago, haven't had the occasion to use it yet but love the stoutness and ascetics.

 

my 2 cents: pull the headliner for drilling. put sound matting up there while the liner is down anyway.

 

Just threw bronze wheels on my silver as well. So dope!

 

Could someone with a prinsu cab rack for a crewmax please measure between the bottom of the cross bars and the top of the roof at the shallowest point? Looking to see if I could fit solar panels under the rack, in between the roof and the rack. Maybe towards the back as I probably won’t block the sunroof. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

Pretty sure the cross bars are 54” for both the double cab and crewmax. Just bought two extra for my crewmax from tnutz. They’re cheap but shipping from Canada is brutal.

honestly, if you can hold off to BF, I’d probably wait and see if cali raised off-road has a big sale and order it through them. I’d be willing to bet they will. CBI usually does too. With the cost of aluminum, your time, and a potential decent discount in Black Friday, it might not be worth it. I’d number crunch this one for sure.

 

Any tips to quiet this thing down? If I’m going over 60 and there’s any wind, this thing is howling. Appreciate the help in advance

 

Ummm, let's not forget another important detail... being able to have ice cream in the desert.

When we bought our trailer 6 years ago I was loading up for our maiden voyage and it suddenly hit me... "Holy Shit, I have a freezer. I should take ice cream!"

It's kinda' become a tradition ever since.

 

Just installed my prinsu rack yesterday with some direction from this thread and wanted to just add my .02 while its fresh in my mind.

Overall I found this install very tedious. I had help from my brother who has way more patience that I do and it took 8 careful hours overall. I watched prinsu's own tutorial video which made the install look very easy but early in the install I could see they really glossed over the tedious bits.

First of all if you are going to tackle this yourself get a couple more items: two sided tape and adhesive remover. I also bought loctite not realizing they had packaged some with the kit.


-They didn't show in the video the stock molding has adhesive. It took me a good while to get that cleaned off the molding and in the channel.

-I had my brother drop the headliner so I can't give exact tips on this process but I could see it was a PITA putting it back together.

-Drilling wasn't exactly the hard bit, it was making sure we had the holes in the right spot. Probably moved the partially assembled rack in place 5 or 6 times just to make sure the holes were in the right spot. One thing I'd suggest is starting to two forward holes slightly foward toward the windscreen. When we got to the back, there is a factory welded "hook" for the rear trim piece. The last mounting point for me was but up against that and I wasn't sure if we'd even get to mount there given how close to the hook we got.

-One of the more frustrating parts for me was trimming the weatherstripping. We got to the home stretch and we couldn't get two of the bolts into the rivnuts due to me cutting the weatherstripping a hair too big. At this point we had to take the spacers out which had our RTV on it causing huge messes all over the paint and hands.

-speaking of mess, I don't see how its possible not to get rtv over everything unless by some miracle you get everything lined up perfectly. I probably spent 30 - 40 minutes throughout the process wiping up rtv.

-the prinsu weather stripping for the front plate is crap. I don't' know how they expect that to just stay on unless you use adhesive. maybe i missed something in the directions but i'm not using it for now.

-i didn't see anyone post about this but the rack is interfering with the satellite radio. I need to look more into this but on my ride home it kept cutting out

-I don't see how you can safely do this without dropping the headliner. So much shavings get into the hole and even with a magnet there is a good bit that is still there.

-we used a thin piece of steel with magnets on it to catch shavings and it worked decently well.

Please excuse my scattered thoughts on this, still pretty exhausted. Overall I'm happy with the look, concerned about leaking in the future. Not sure I'd do it again but time will tell. Few pics incoming...

 

Just want to update on this project. Unfortunately I did experience leaking. It seams two of the plus nuts did not seat all the way and I think the only way to get them to seat is to take them out and re-do them which aint gonna happen. I tried to RTV around the nuts more but that only slightly helped. My solution so far which seams to be the fix is to add butyl tape on top of the plus nuts. So far we've had several rains and no more signs of leaking.

Also, wind noise is pretty high when on the interstate. I also added a prinsu linkable light bar and its really messed with aero and the front end feels floaty in a bad way. I assume its the light bar/rack combo but my suspension is shot as well. I did add the weatherstriping from prinsu and it helped slightly but I think I'm gonna add sound proofing to the roof in the future.

 

I'd try removing/lifting/blocking the rack so you have access to the plus nuts. Clean/remove any silicone away and clean area with acetone. Then use this stuff.
https://www.acehardware.com/departm...HaQ1ooYq5yvvBDwnk0IaAoOFEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

 

I’d just tighten the rack bolts down (should compress the jack nuts a bit more) and then apply some lexel around the bases of the post things that go up to the rack. And then apple more lexel around the bolt head area. I bought these to make application a bit easier

$20 Caulking Nozzle for Sausage Caulking Gun, Reusable Caulk Nozzle Applicator, Durable Epoxy Piston Caulk Cap, Replacement Extension Tool Supplies Applied in The Construction (Red-2Pack)

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZY3VVQ9

You could also just drop the headliner and apply silicone/lexel from underneath. If you’re going to drop the headliner you might as well drill out the jack nuts and through bolt it

 

Don't forget to put sealant around the bolt too, on the threads.

 

Prinsu >>>>> everything else

 

Where'd you get those bedside stripes?
I've been looking for some.

 

Designed them with a local vinyl company.

 

Or, pay the $600 to get it put on by a local off road truck shop and get a warranty. Dropped truck off about 8 and they called about 2 and done.

 

This is an update on how she sits today, a few years later, with a 10 gallon Yakima Roadshower and a CVT awning attached. I’ve never had any issue with the rack, no leaking at all and we experience torrential rains at times here in SW Florida.


The rack gets a lot of use carrying my kayaks when I only want to bring a single or couple of hulls with me and not use my 6 up Continental kayak trailer.




This is what it’s all about!

 

I picked rhino pioneer platform for my shell instead and I’m stoked with it. It’s solid