I talked to the Yakima Rack support line a couple of weeks ago about
mounting their racks on the poptop of my 86 Westfalia.  They told me which
brackets would be best for putting the towers on and then went on to tell
me that the max I should put on the racks is two bicycles or  . . . I
forget what else . . .  Anyway I asked if tearout of the brackets from the
fiberglass was a problem and he said no.  The brackets could hold much more
with no fear of tearout.  The problem that Yakima is concerned with is
lift.  They seem to be afraid that lots of stuff on their roofrack, on a
poptop, could create enough lift to make the poptop latch fail, allowing
the poptop to "parachute" up while driving down the road.  He also said
that a canoe on the rack was out of the question also due to the lift concern.

Anybody ever hear of anything like this?

I've seen a number of Westfalias with racks mounted to the poptop (not the
gutters) with a lots of stuff on the rack.  Are these disasters waiting to
happen at hiway speeds?

Rich Durant
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Rich Durant
Licensing & Installation Products
Mentor Graphics Corporation