Up next in 10
Flatline Van Co Roof Rack Install (New Version!)
817 views
May 3, 2025
Today at Van Builder HQ, Nick is showing how to install a Flatline Van Co Roof Rack. Tune in, this one you don't want to miss! Visit https://www.vanbuilderhq.com to learn more. Interested in building a custom a van? Check out https://www.odysseycustomvans.com
View Video Transcript
0:00
[Music]
0:06
so
0:13
[Music]
0:25
hey guys welcome back to the shop today's exciting day we have the new flightline vancouver roof rack system uh
0:31
just came out about a week ago and uh my curt van customer over here
0:37
thomas's van we have put it on his van it is a mid-roof 2020 ford transit
0:45
and uh yeah we're gonna go ahead and unbox this uh i've never seen this before uh because it's so new i just saw
0:51
the pictures online but yeah we're gonna open this up and show you guys how to install the new
0:56
version of the flatline vanco roof rack all right we've got two boxes here so
1:03
a little bit different shipping than the last time this system apparently has the new
1:08
fairing with it so that's gonna be really cool but yeah ups just dropped us off today
1:14
so i'm really excited and to my knowledge this is one of the first ones that
1:20
have been delivered so got a cool sneak peek here
1:31
all right so the bigger box looks like the actual roof rack system itself
1:40
so the first thing i see is an automotive trim gasket and this looks like this is what's going to be
1:46
[Music] according to the pictures i saw this is going to go underneath the fairing so it
1:52
doesn't rub up against the top of the van so we got that
1:59
i'm just gonna be setting this stuff aside as we pick it out um this looks like the front fairing
2:04
clips it's a little angle brackets right here
2:11
we have our tr0104b
2:16
hardware kit this says a on it
2:24
okay so this is gonna be just all the mounting hardware for the
2:30
actual the plates that sit on top of the van and i'll show you that in just one
2:36
second
2:52
this is a spacer box there's nothing in that
3:02
there we go so these look like the new style brackets
3:08
there we go let's take one out
3:17
so we've got let's see we've got one two three four five six seven eight
3:25
eight of these and this is a lower profile style
3:31
bracket so if you guys can see that
3:36
it's a brackets not the l bracket like they had before so it's way way
3:42
reduced and it has pads pre-installed on the back so these don't fall off they're actually glued on the back or they have
3:49
like a little sticky adhesive and so there's an open channel here
3:54
so like we did before we were putting uh some uh
4:01
sealant on this back side to do the whole entire pad since this pad is separate and just for
4:06
support this side over here we only need to seal this little hole which is really nice
4:12
and to make it even nicer this bracket has a angle to it so the forward van is
4:19
actually angled like this so the van has the curve and the roof rack is now going to be
4:25
straight so so far this is this is really nice design
4:30
[Music] and then we have our
4:35
two plates and these two plates are what actually
4:41
join each side together so you're going to have these
4:47
so if you watched the last video of the flatland draco root back it comes with
4:54
these uh aluminum plates that go and they this is
5:01
what actually makes up the structure of the roof rack however you'll have this one is actually the
5:08
looks like the passenger side and it's the front so the new redesign has this taper
5:15
down here in the front to hug the contour of the van
5:20
very nice and then as we move towards the back we've got these two little holes
5:26
and this plate is actually what's going to connect these two to make it one solid
5:31
piece as it goes all the way through the back of the van so i'm looking at this and
5:39
it looks like the it's really nice
5:45
really nice design very very similar to what is already
5:51
on the van over here that i just put on in the last install video you guys can
5:56
click up here to check that out now this it's a little flatline vanco logo looks like it's like
6:04
water jetted out or laser cut not sure how you do this but yeah it's just the same except this
6:11
bracket is way way lower profile so pretty excited to see how that goes
6:17
together you got your pad bracket here
6:23
so that is what it's gonna look like for this new version again this is for a mid-roof van so
6:30
i'm anticipating this angle a little bit more milder on the mid roof and then if you get the
6:36
high roof version it's a little bit more aggressive so i mean that's really pretty much it
6:45
yeah we got the front the back get our brackets
6:50
so all that is pretty self-explanatory you'll see that when i installed up here on the roof
6:57
so i'm gonna close this box up and we're gonna open up our second box and i'm
7:02
pretty sure that this is the the new redesigned front fairing
7:19
actually hold on i'll take that back this is probably just crossbars yeah
7:26
okay this is just the crossbars in here same standard 80 20 style crossbars
7:39
which means i got too excited and if i open this the first box back up
7:47
you're probably going to see the fairing at the very up at the very bottom
8:07
okay so they package this with the fairing at the very bottom and the fairing is not
8:16
aluminum like the old one it's a way way different it's
8:24
actually see what material was this
8:31
i'm sure if it's abs not acrylic i'm not sure what it is i'll probably
8:36
put it in the video here but anyway this is the new fairing
8:42
so it's flexible it's not like the other one and i'll go ahead and take it out of
8:47
here be careful these edges are extremely sharp right here so you could cut
8:53
yourself it's got two sides so one side is shiny and then one side is a
9:01
kind of textured matte finish and it's made into the plastic or
9:07
whatever material this is it's not painted on or anything so
9:13
yeah so this is going to go on the front and my understanding the whole entire point
9:19
of this redesign was to get the low profile lower
9:25
and then there was some complaints about
9:31
noise from the old front fairing so
9:37
this should decrease if not eliminate the noise that was uh being talked about
9:42
and yeah so looks good
9:48
all right so you know what time it is now it's time to start installing this uh we use the same process as we did for
9:55
the van over here with the version one of the flatline vanco roof rack
10:01
but for this one installation looks like it's going to be exactly the same
10:07
may even be easier and i think the appearance is going to look really really nice so we'll go ahead and roll that time
10:13
lapse and hope you guys enjoy all right the first step is to get out a
10:18
heat gun if you have it and keep it on low but you just want to warm up to get this plastic cap removed to expose where
10:26
the threads are gonna go in the top of the van there's eight positions you're gonna clean each one off uh goo gone
10:33
works the best let it sit there for a minute if it's a little tough but do that and then once you're
10:39
finished you're gonna clean it off with denatured alcohol before you set the pads on
10:46
all right so we've cleaned off the roof we've removed all the adhesive that is underneath
10:52
uh each one of these holes and we've gone ahead and take our bracket put that on top
11:00
uh as you can see in this hole we had to grind out this top part because
11:05
of the way the hole sets in here uh so
11:11
these three we didn't have to do it this one we did have two uh it's rare i'd say maybe
11:17
two out of every eight holes maybe you need to do a little bit of grinding on here and that's just so the
11:22
bolt can go down straight and it doesn't bind on the inside so once you have that finished you can
11:27
line it all up the next step is to get your screws um but
11:33
you'll probably see this in the timelapse before we put this down i will put some sealant right here there's a real tiny bead
11:40
and then i'll also put a small bead uh at the top of this
11:46
screw i'll show you so here's your hardware
11:56
actually give you uh some tools so technically it has what it needs for you to install it which is pretty cool it's
12:02
kind of like ikea style it's really thin middle these are the screws that are going to
12:07
help you install those brackets like i was talking about and at the top of this head of the screw
12:15
that is where i'm going to put a little bit of the sealant and they give you these washers
12:21
you have a rubber gasket on the bottom of these washers so with the bolt goes through it but that
12:27
with the bolt head and this meat that's going to make sure is the seal because the rest of this does a good seal the
12:32
bottom of it is going to seal to the plate into the van but this top part
12:40
that's where i want to make it nice and sealed just just a real small dab of sealant right there
12:46
and it'll be perfect moving them down you've got the bolts right here
12:52
and i'm assuming these i know four of these are going to be used for that plate i
12:59
was telling you guys about earlier and then this will be the fairing
13:04
hardware this will be for your 80 20 cross members and this is the
13:11
t-slot for the 80 20 to hold the fairing end
13:18
99 sure that's what it is but you guys will see in the rest of the video
13:24
all right once we have our pads bolted in we're going to go ahead and start taking our
13:30
beams and bolting them on and you just want to do it loosely as far as the sealant i will show you
13:36
that in a later part of this video
13:43
alright guys we have the passenger side on the van and a couple of quirks here
13:49
that i have found installing this new rack
13:55
pretty much straightforward it's the same thing the brackets are designed a little bit different for that low profile
14:01
these side rails are pretty much the same the way you mount it here is the same
14:07
and i'm not sure if i actually i'm not sure if i actually um
14:12
explained this in my last video but when you're installing this passenger side of the driver's side
14:20
these two pieces uh when you bolt this down here and here they might be out of alignment because
14:25
uh it's really just the nature of the van because these three
14:31
brackets are pretty much on one sheet of metal in the van there's a dividing section here and this
14:38
is on a different one so if you tighten this down here and here
14:43
it's going to torque it and this is not going to line up so as you're assembling this you want to
14:49
make sure front to back left to right that it's loose it's tight enough to stand up
14:56
on its own but you want it to make be loose that way you can get this
15:03
adjustment of the front and the back uh level right here
15:08
then your outer bracket you can clamp down with these four bolts and you can
15:13
make that um you can tighten this down fully this
15:19
bracket and that way both of these are together and they're now acting as one piece the reason you want to have this
15:25
loose like this is because this is just my opinion but when you go to do the other side you
15:31
want it's loose as well because when you put these cross members in you want each side to be able to pull
15:38
together perpendicular so they come together and then they're all true so like this and this and the cross bars
15:45
are one unit and then once that's tight and this side is tight with the crossbars
15:51
then left to right you consider the whole entire rack and then you can also center it
15:56
or adjust it forward to rear as you need that way
16:02
if you do one side and both of them tight you do the other side bolt down tight and you put the crossbars in
16:10
you're kind of torquing it a little bit because there's no way that you're going to get this side and that side perfect your first time
16:16
so keep it loose so that you can pull them together with the crossbars
16:22
themselves and then you can go back add your other bolt down here and
16:27
actually tighten everything up that's just what i've found with my
16:35
installing this rack um other than that it's such a great roof rack system because it's very simple to install
16:41
anybody can do it like i said the tools are in the box you really only need a wrench in that
16:49
allen wrench that comes with it i'm using my tools but we're gonna keep going here we're gonna do the driver
16:54
side we'll put our crossbars in and then we'll get our front fairing on and then we'll be finished with this uh
17:01
this install okay we're on the driver's side of the van i wanted to answer a question that i think is going to come up in the
17:06
comments and that is how tight to tighten the bolt of this bracket so one thing that flatland vanco did
17:13
really well is design the brackets surface area so that's what force is pushing on the roof of the van the way
17:20
that ford designed this threaded insert underneath the sheet metal they didn't put any support around it so if you
17:26
tighten it down too much you could bend the sheet metal on the roof however flatland vancouver's bracket's nice and
17:33
big and fat and has padding so don't worry about that but when you
17:38
tighten it down you need to make sure that you put loctite on it number one because you're not gonna be able to
17:43
crank it down so tight that it stops turning you're just going to crank it down enough to just smush a little bit
17:50
of that gasket washer and you'll be good to go
17:55
all right so real quick before we go further on the time lapse here i wanted to show you how i'm actually preparing this bracket
18:06
so it's really nice like i said because that this is separated
18:12
you can only work worry about applying like a sealant over here now
18:18
there's really no reason to because this is going to make a really good seal as long as you clean the top of the van really well i mean this is going to
18:25
cinch down and really make a good seal but i want to be you know really make sure that it's a
18:31
good seal so what i've been doing is i've got this
18:38
stuff right here it's called dynaflex ultra it's an interior exterior
18:45
sealant and it's actually a lifetime mold mildew algae resistant
18:53
it is rain and paint ready in one hour so it has a nice quick drying time
18:59
and it makes like a little gasket but what i do is i just apply it right here
19:05
just a really really thin bead
19:12
just to that and then when it you know pinches down onto the top of the van it's going to make a nice seal
19:20
and then what i do next is i take the bolt
19:26
that goes into this bracket with the washer now this washer has a really good gasket inside so the way they designed
19:31
this is really nice so you just push this on and it's already got a good seal around
19:37
the screw but again just for a little bit more insurance
19:42
i just take a very very very small bead and i run it around the top of the
19:49
head of the screw and then i just take the paper towel
19:55
and i just spin it so that there's just a very just a very
20:01
small bit so that when this cinches down here now the bolt and the head is sealed
20:06
and then this gasket can seal on the van now when you tighten this
20:12
you want to tighten it until the rubber starts to to slightly bulge out don't over tighten it
20:18
to where you start cracking all the rubber all the way around because that's going to create cracks and then water is
20:24
going to be able to get in there so you can see how it's kind of tapered right now
20:30
you want to tighten it down till it's flat but don't time it so hook tight that the
20:36
your crack you're tearing the rubber down here because that'll make it not seal and then last but not least
20:43
you're we're going to want to take uh try to get this all the way at the top
20:48
there you go just right below the top of this
20:53
and then what you're going to do is take loctite now this is the blue 242 which is the
21:00
liquid and you're going to take a loctite and you're just going to take it
21:08
and pretty pretty good generous amount like that on the threads that way
21:14
when you take this plate and you put it down and you put this in
21:21
you tighten it down really good to where this rubber just spreads a little bit like i was saying
21:26
and then it's going to give a good grip without the loctite the loctite is just
21:32
additional insurance that it's not going to back out over time with all the vibration that you have in a van
21:39
so these are the two things that i recommend personally again
21:44
i don't think flatline vanco says that you need to do this but just me personally i like to do this
21:50
good insurance to make sure that everything is nice and watertight
21:56
okay we're back on the driver's side got our brackets in can put our last two rails on here and
22:03
when i'm putting them on uh i believe there is eight bolts per
22:09
section um so i'm only putting two in each and that allows me to move around easier
22:14
again i'm putting the first one in loosely just enough so it stays vertical
22:20
and the same one in the back same thing and then that plate that goes in the middle
22:26
you can uh put it on the inside i put it on the outside but i'm gonna
22:32
change that for some reason when i put this together i put on the outside but
22:38
i'm gonna move it back on to the inside so it's nice and clean on the outside so
22:44
essentially that is just keeping that those two bars together nice and straight
22:49
and then the next step we're gonna do is start to put in our front fairing
22:56
all right so we have our roof rack um actually i gotta take you guys off the
23:03
tripod for a second i've got roof rack up and if you can see
23:09
i didn't tell you this before but the there's a taper on the front
23:15
and then there's a taper on the rear and obviously the rear goes down more
23:22
vertical most would be that's say that's self-explanatory of what's
23:27
the front the back but just in case somebody is very new
23:32
that's what it is these front two screws are where the 80 20 bar is going to go
23:38
these more forward two screws they connect to
23:45
this bracket so you're going to have one of these brackets on
23:50
the right one is the driver's side passenger side and then you're going to have these
23:57
these supporting pieces right here
24:04
and if you look this one is longer this one is about the same as this one
24:12
so we're gonna have this one over here this one over here this longer one in
24:18
the middle so you can kind of see that
24:26
you can get like a [Music] like a fan shape
24:31
and so we've got our fairing we're just going to orientate it to the way it would be on the roof which is
24:39
i'm assuming the more aggressive curve is going down
24:44
the straighter one is going up
24:56
i'm going to take our bag of screws here
25:02
which ones are we going to use first we got one two three four six
25:33
see so this plate we will use
25:42
i'm missing some hardware well i'll start with what i know
25:48
[Applause] our t-slots need to go in here for uh this piece
25:54
i have this in there and we've got one two three four five six of these
26:00
one two three four five six so our t-slots are for these middle pieces
26:06
oh and then we'll use the nuts for this for the fairing in the second portion we'll use the
26:13
black screws on the ends
26:20
then i guess we'll use the black screws for the front
26:27
alright let's do that
26:55
so the 820 bar is going to be laying down flat and then when you put in your these two
27:01
slots
27:17
i'm going to put a lock washer on and then
27:27
so you want to have this little part sticking up you need it facing down otherwise the t-slot can't
27:34
actually fit through there so you're not going to put this on here
27:39
and slide it you're actually going to take the bracket right here
27:45
and then you're going to just loosely put on one of the t-slots
27:57
just a little bit and then you're gonna take another screw lock washer
28:06
another t-slot
28:15
make sure this part make sure this part is facing down and the flat even part is up
28:24
and then imagine our fairing is kind of facing up so we're going to take it we're just going to feed it in here
28:33
if you guys can see that so you're just going to take it and then feed it into the bar
28:39
just like that and this is going to be our center one so get it pretty close but keep it loose
28:46
we'll center it when we put it on here
28:58
[Applause] next we're gonna
29:04
just keep repeating so we're gonna take this bracket right here
29:15
your t slot
29:25
another screw oh we forgot our lock washer
29:33
[Applause]
29:49
slide it in from the opposite side i'm just going to finger tighten it just a little bit but enough to where we can
29:56
still slide it now you see what i just did i put this in backwards don't do that
30:02
[Music] flip it around
30:08
put it back in keep it nice and loose now this one
30:13
opposite uh side screw lock washer
30:22
t-slot [Music]
30:40
when i do 80 20 inside the van i have these uh roll and t-slot nuts which are really nice because imagine if you had
30:46
this bar already in place and you wanted to put a bracket you'd have to take the whole bar out to
30:52
slide this in and they make a roll in that little spring on it and you roll it
30:58
in you can put it right on it so you guys might have to check that out in
31:03
another video i'm just going to take this and put it down
31:09
there i put it in backwards [Music]
31:17
that's again happens when you film it live all right so again just nice and loose nice and
31:24
loose because not only are we getting this
31:30
uh maybe you can see now okay not only are we getting it left to right but up and down this up and down is how we're
31:37
gonna angle it contour to the curvature of the the roof
31:43
so now we're going to put this down here
31:52
a little more of a stable area i don't need any more tools
31:58
i didn't mention this uh that hole that i cut out and grinded i put rust preventative on there that's what this
32:03
is anything that you expose bare metal you need to put rust
32:10
preventative on all right so next we're going to take
32:15
this and we're going to put on here i think before i do that i'm going to take this
32:21
weather strip in here and put on the fairing
32:47
all right we're back we got a fresh battery where to leave off we were got our fairing out and we were going to put the
32:54
weather stripping on so gather these two ends
33:00
and then pull this out and then you'll find the center and then we're going to keep the channel
33:07
side towards us and then the squishy side forward
33:14
just put that in the center
33:25
i haven't put this on before so i don't know how much force it's going to take
33:50
i think we actually might need to get a hammer tap this on here
34:17
a rubber mallet
34:26
start from the center work our way out
35:35
it's okay if it falls off
35:43
get one side started and just keep going
35:50
you'll get a technique for how you're getting the snap on essentially there's
35:55
like like a little piece of metal spring in there and you want to just open it up so it
36:00
goes down and grabs
36:24
i'm barely hitting it because i don't want to damage this because in the middle here it's open it's actually not touching
36:30
anything so the left and the right are the only sides touching
36:49
so
37:16
you'll know it's seated when you hit it and you feel like you can feel like you're hitting the plastic
37:25
that feels good
37:37
okay i'm trying to pull up on this because when it's on the van i'm sure it's fine
37:42
the one's gonna be pushing against it it's not gonna come off but uh during this install process
37:49
might be pretty easy to move
38:23
all right so now we're going to take our flex screws
38:34
since there's no other screws left [Music]
38:54
i'll just tilt this down and i'm going to go straight for the middle first
39:05
and again you get good you get adjustment up and down here um that's what i like about this kit
39:13
at the moment is there's a lot of room for adjustment which is very good
39:25
because ford is actually the one that is not the consistent person here in this
39:31
equation [Applause]
39:38
so we're just going to tighten this just enough to where we still held down but we still get movement
39:48
it's a little loose
40:03
i'm just gonna do one more here and i'm gonna move to the outside edges to show you guys that and then we'll get back into
40:12
probably some more time lapse
40:21
[Applause]
40:50
all right now just talk to you about this one and then uh i won't get this on video
40:56
but essentially this is gonna mount to here on this bottom side
41:02
and uh let's make sure here yeah
41:11
so this is a taper it's angled so when it goes up there
41:16
uh let's see what let's see this
41:28
okay the smaller the screws that are the type the two holes that are tighter end
41:34
go to the outside reel so the passenger side and then flip it over driver's side the more elongated ones on the outside
41:41
are the ones are going to bolt into the fairing right here on the back
41:48
um so that is what we'll show you when we get it up on the van
41:55
all right it's time to get this fairing up on the van and
42:00
i had to think about how i was going to do this because there's so many points on this fairing that need or have
42:06
adjustability and to make the decision on what you tighten down first versus what you tighten down when it gets on the roof
42:12
uh i had to kind of think about it so the brackets attached to the fairing i tighten those down 100
42:19
but i left the three brackets the back side that attaches to the 80 20 rail or that cross
42:26
member i let it be loose and my thought was it did work out
42:33
is that once i get it up there i can bolt it in and then that adjustment that i have from the bracket
42:40
interacting with the 80 20 i can push the fairing down and get that gasket to make a nice even seal
42:47
it worked out perfectly so the hard part is when you decide to
42:53
install it like that um you're gonna have small hands so you can get into behind fairing and
43:01
get everything tightened down and you have to have a ton of patience i mean a ton of patience
43:06
i would say if you're doing this outside in the full sun you might lose it because
43:13
it's pretty tedious um it's not hard by any means it's just taking the time to be patient to screw
43:20
one screw down at a time and that's what you got to do
43:26
so i did that worked out great what i'm doing now is putting in that 80 20 bar
43:33
and if you notice when i put it in on one side i kept it loose and it went to the opposite side that i'm on now driver
43:39
side and i tied it up more and it pulled in both side rails of the roof rack and
43:44
that's what you want to do remember with these cross beams when you start to install them you want
43:50
to start from the front and go all the way back because the way that the rail is on the side it
43:56
has like a lip that turns in if you can see it and it's impossible to get the rails in
44:03
if you've fully tightened the roof rack to the roof so just do one cross member at a time
44:10
and kind of taper your way back keeping everything nice and loose and then when all the crossbars are in
44:16
then you can tighten it down and then go back to your brackets bolting the
44:26
roof rack to the roof and tighten everything down now a little hack that i do if you see i have a little rag
44:33
and i put the since i'm doing all this solo i put the rag at the end of the
44:38
cross member i'm going to slide it across the roof and make sure i don't scratch anything and what i'm doing again
44:44
working my way from right to left in this view of the camera and just putting it in one bar at a time
44:53
and again as i said you start working your way all the way back and everything's going to go
45:00
nice and easy now i'm putting a fan up here just as a visual because i wanted to see if
45:07
flightline vanco had moved the location of the hole right behind the fan
45:14
and they didn't for obvious reasons because the way that they put that mount in is right above the bracket
45:21
point so but they do allow all these bars to be adjustable so if you look there's a
45:27
place where it can slide and be really like a fine tune adjustment so that's all that's all i did i took it
45:33
from where it was supposed to go on that second bar and put it in the adjustable slot and that allows me to
45:40
clear a max fan at its foremost position in front of a van on a ford transit now
45:46
when you come to the back of the van again we're just doing uh front all the way to the back
45:53
when you come to the back of the van uh this is the last bar you're gonna put in now once this one's in tight
45:59
you're not gonna be able to add any other bars unless you loosen all the bars up so that's what i said
46:06
uh earlier plan ahead i figure how many bars you're gonna add into this as opposed to just the
46:12
like four standard bars that go over the bracket mounts
46:20
and then i think i pull up i'm okay i'm measuring for the uh solar panel
46:26
and i needed to add an additional bar but since i kept them loose i can pop that one in no problem
46:35
so there we go i got my extra bar for the solar panel again use my rag trick to just slide that in don't scratch
46:41
anything and i'm all set all right guys as you can see we are finished with the installation of the
46:48
flatline vanco roof rack this is their new version it's a little bit sleeker in the front in the back it
46:54
actually lives a little bit of a taper a little style to it the most noticeable difference is the
47:00
front fairing so it looks really nice they've got an automotive trim gasket on the bottom
47:05
makes a really good seal and contours nicely so looks really good
47:12
the rails on the side are about the same as the old system almost exact except for the new
47:18
you know mounting style and what i wanted to show you today is
47:24
not just the install since we just wrapped that up in this video but
47:30
the main thing that i see when you're putting a roof rack on your van is
47:35
a lot of van a lot of di wires or builders you'll install the roof rack but then
47:43
as you know secondhand you'll put on your vent fans and your solar
47:48
panel and then you'll try to you know make it work and fit and the suggestion that i want to
47:55
bring to you guys today is when you install this roof rack
48:00
you want to have adjustability in the crossbars it's kind of house design you have your
48:05
standard crossbars that are in four positions of the van so you got the front rib
48:10
and when i talk about ribs that's the rib that supports the ceiling of the van itself
48:16
so you got the front you got one here in the middle one right behind it and then one in the back so
48:22
there's four ribs those are the ribs that are inside the van and flatline vanco has a standard
48:29
hole pattern that is designated for those ribs to go in now if you want adjustability for
48:35
example this solar panel right here the two middle bars that i have i have them on
48:42
the adjustable portion of the roof rack and that's because if you decide to do a
48:48
two fan configuration on a ford transit it doesn't matter if it's low medium high roof
48:55
and it's the 148 inch model a van your rear one is going to be fixed but
49:01
your front fan even if you move it all the way forward it's still going to interfere with this
49:08
crossbar from flatline vanco what they do is they give you that adjustable option on the cross bars and
49:16
there's a slot behind it where you can actually adjust that cross member and so that's what i did i did it on the van
49:22
that's over there with the flightline vacco roof rack as well as this one
49:28
so we have that in adjustable position and then we also have the extra bar that comes with the kit or
49:33
i'm calling it an extra bar and we're using it back here behind the solar panel and that's going to adjust
49:40
for our length of the solar panel so you can put multiple different sizes of solar panels on here
49:45
and just to give you guys an idea of what's going to fit the width of here of this roof rack
49:53
54 and a quarter inches however 54 inches is pretty much the number i want you to
49:59
have is stuck in your head as far as the length of the solar panel the maximum
50:06
link in this middle section if you're doing a two fan configuration with the front fan moved as far forward possible
50:13
you're looking at about 38 inches 38 by 57 is this area
50:19
now uh this is thomas's van and we're going with a
50:25
watt rengi solar panel this is plenty for what his needs are he's going to have a
50:31
400 amp hour battery bank system along with the alternator charging
50:37
obviously the solar and then shore power connection so that's what he's going to use for his
50:42
power system now if if we go up to the front
50:48
you do have a area up here this area is let's see
50:55
we got 22 and a half inches by 57 inches so that is going to
51:02
allow you to put an additional solar panel up there if you wanted to expand
51:09
there are other solar panels on the market to where you can do i think zam solar has one that's they're
51:15
very skinny panels but they're long and they would work on the side here but
51:21
they're pretty expensive i think they're almost 300 each and it's only going to be about 90
51:26
watts per one of those panels so lastly i wanted to talk about
51:33
the front fairing front fairing is it's diy friendly but
51:39
you can putting it together is interesting
51:44
because you can partially put it together when you are on the ground and then bring it up and then do
51:51
the adjustments however the adjustments that you have
51:57
for or when it's on top of the van they're pretty hard to get to
52:02
so i would suggest leaving it kind of loose put it on the roof and then dialing it in to the
52:09
contour of the roof but just be very patient with that front fairing it looks incredible but
52:17
i'm just saying it takes some patience uh that's all the rest of the roof rack
52:23
very very uh easy straightforward to install
52:28
and then uh yeah the last thing i wanted to talk about is kind of going back to the beginning here
52:36
don't fully bolt down your roof rack now i know this sounds crazy because it's like hey nick i just installed this what
52:42
are you talking about well if you need if you're laying at your roof and you need to adjust these
52:49
crossbars if you bolt everything down tight
52:54
it's almost impossible to adjust these crossbars because you've squeezed the roof rack in everything's locked into
53:00
position if you install the roof rack but then leave the bolts that connect these
53:07
pieces these side pieces to the van if you leave that slightly loose
53:13
so like that then you're able to loosen your cross members
53:18
and then push it apart and then readjust them
53:23
so that would be my little pro tip for you guys when you're laying out your van
53:29
and yeah the fans that i have on here the front the rear and the solar panel they're
53:34
just laying on here they're not installed it's really just so that i can
53:39
set the crossbars where i want them and then set the crossbars for the solar panel
53:46
and then once i do that i can take all this off cut my roof holes attach my mounting brackets to the solar
53:53
panel and then when i come back on the roof the next time everything's locked in place and i can just
53:59
install things much much easier so that's going to wrap it up for the installation video on the flatline vanco
54:07
roof rack system this is their new style roof rack again looks incredible
54:13
very easy to put in you could do this in a day
54:18
and if you guys have any questions on any specifics on how to install this roof
54:24
rack or anything like for example the max fan here
54:29
i've got a video that i'll put a link to right here so you guys can watch that we will have a
54:34
future video on install installing solar panels on the roof
54:40
yeah if you have any questions put those in the comments happy to put that into a future video to help you guys out
54:47
other than that we will see you in the next video [Music]
55:04
you
#Convertibles
#Custom & Performance Vehicles
#Home Improvement
#Motor Vehicles (By Type)
#Roofing
#Trucks
# Vans & SUVs