Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Rack It!
The Civic needed a rack, and I didn't like the Yakima/Thule ones out there. They look too "added-on" to me. The Civic Si has nice rain gutters. So I started looking around at other cars with OEM racks and similarly-shaped rain gutters. The Acura MDX suv has a very similar shape, and it's made by Honda, too. I bought a set on eBay and cut them down to the width of the Civic's roof. I drilled holes of a large enough diameter to put blind nuts called "Plusnuts" into the roof. I primed the bare metal exposed by the drilling with POR-15 so that it wouldn't rust. Then I gooped tons of silicone sealant in the holes. The racks required some pretty serious angle grinding to get them to fit down in the gutters, but they look totally stock now.
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3 comments:
Love it. I wish you guys were our neighbors...always something interesting going on over at your place.
Here is a car riddle I am trying to solve: I currently own a 7 passenger Honda Odyssey. In January my 6th child will be born. Obviously, I need an 8 passenger vehicle. The current model Odyssey is 8 passenger via the addition of a very narrow (I think 8") seat in between the second row captain's chairs. I'd like to add a similar seat to my existing vehicle...I just have no idea how or who could do it for me.
I called a company called Little Seats (www.littlepassengerseats.com), but they weren't willing to do a one-off project like mine.
I'm just trying to "use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without".
I'm hoping to pull it off for less than $1,000.
Your Suburban post has got me thinking as well...
Also, the most recent issue of Car & Driver has a MythBusters type article about the MPG impact of various things like driving with the windows down vs. using A/C.
They also talk about roof racks with and without crossbars.
You may find it interesting...
Richard, we wish you were our neighbors, too. Congrats on the expected arrival!
We have the 8-passenger Odyssey now. The middle seat is actually pretty nice--it makes use of the other two seats so that it almost feels like a bench. Much on the Odyssey didn't change on the switch from your model to ours. The chassis is still the same one. It was just a pretty serious facelift. I can take some photos of our seat tracks and send them to you. I sort of suspect that there might be a way to retrofit your car. Might require taking it to a, um, more south-of-the-bordery kind of body shop, but I bet you could find someone who would be willing to weld in the rails or whatever it took. Find a totalled newer Odyssey and take all three middle seat and the rails from it.
I was thinking about the same problem when we were considering buying a Mazda5. The models in Europe have a middle seat that folds out of one of the captains chairs, but they don't offer it here. I LOVE that car--just a little too small for us.
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