Cowl Help

[Fireeater316]

I’m running the full Fab4 overland rack on my Gladiator and having issues with where the rack bolts into the cowl below the front windshield. First off, the Jeep cowl is plastic which vibrated and cracked the bolt connection after a few trips. So I’ve placed some metal pieces under the plastic cowl for support but it still makes a ton of knocking noise on the trail. Any suggestions on how to beef up this support area?

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[mpsoldier]

Does the over cab rack bolt to the lower cowl similar to how the Adventure Rack System does? Just for clarification, is it the noise from the plastic cowl rattling or is it the rack rattling? I have the ARS on my Mojave. It came with additional steele to beef up the area under the cowl where the rack bolted in. Required drilling out the factory bolt holes for larger diameter, heavier bolts. Some thin weather stripping stops the cowl rattle and isn't visible from outside.

 

[Fireeater316]

Thanks for the reply! Yes, it looks like it bolts in very similar. Part of the rattling I believe is the actual rack hitting the truck A pillar because the support for it just isn’t there. I’ll look into seeing if I can get a similar support.

 

[Pips_the_JT]

Does the over cab rack bolt to the lower cowl similar to how the Adventure Rack System does? Just for clarification, is it the noise from the plastic cowl rattling or is it the rack rattling? I have the ARS on my Mojave. It came with additional steele to beef up the area under the cowl where the rack bolted in. Required drilling out the factory bolt holes for larger diameter, heavier bolts. Some thin weather stripping stops the cowl rattle and isn't visible from outside.

Hi!
Questions about your over-cab rack:
1. Can you get your hardtop off w/o removing the rack? Just front pieces or all 3?
2. When you looked, did you find other over-cab racks? I've found some ladder racks for pickups, but the compact truck/ 5 ft bed ones don't look sturdy.
Thanks!

 

[mpsoldier]

1. The freedom panels are easily removed. To remove the rear, you need to remove the cross bars, which is easy enough. You could leave them off until you needed them if you wanted.
2. The ARS Backpac (over the bed area) is pretty sturdy, no wobbly flexible metal. The cross beams are also very sturdy. I went with the ARS/Metal Cloak rack because it is heavy duty. The other racks I had seen really seemed flimsy. MC and ARS sell hinge steps for the doors and the rack itself to make accessing higher areas easy.

 

[WestyMike]

The ARS cowls get re-inforced with a thick, steel pier plate and the plastic cover gets modified to mount back on the outside of that plate.

 

[Fireeater316]

Anyone know where that plate or something similar can be purchased? ARS retailers don’t sell it separately and Fab Fours doesn’t have anything.

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