The Home Machinist!

I want to carry a 14' AlumaCraft boat on top of my car. The car has channels for mounts, and I'm not familiar with how they work. I wanted to fab my own rail and mounting hardware using aluminum I beams and some kind of solid aluminum pillars to screw them to. The channels are basically square slots that look to have a very subtle bulge about half way down. It doesn't look like an expanding footing would hold strong enough from pulling out, but that is about the best I could come up with.

Is anyone familiar with this style of mount, have ideas or more info about them? I was looking for a cutaway view of the mounts, or even just close-up photos.

Barring that, I was looking at commercial mounts, but still not sure what I should be looking for that would handle an ~150 pound boat.

Hmm, well I've learned this is either a gutter mount or naked roof mount. It has a channel and a Thule mount instruction manual looks like they don't even remove the plastic slot covers and the mount foot just barely sits in there, and the main structural mounting is via strap brackets that hook into the door jambs. That's going to be hard to make, and these things are too expensive.

What's a 'car' ?

Owner of pickups and a Jeep Bill

Hey, well I heard there was this town in Texas that banned pickups. You wouldn't want one of those around here - way too crowded.

No worries. No plans to drive to any foreign countries anytime soon! Too crowded!

#1 on the list of vehicles stolen in Texas: the Ford F150.
I doubt there’s anywhere in Texas that banned ‘em! Way too many.....


Bill