I want to get rid of my roof rack.
- Thread starter Psylence
- Start date
thecrash91
Member
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- 2003.5 Mazdaspeed Protege
i doubt your going to sell the rack anytime soon, i've had mine up for about 5 months. the strips do not sit flush at all, they go down about .5-1cm i wasn't too happy at first but from about ten feet away its not noticeable and i don't really care anymore. it does make the car look sharper by a helluva lot., good investment it cost me about 140 for the strips and clips brand new from onlinemazdaparts
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- Protege5 2003
There are two kinds of filler strips, which are you talking about?
1. You remove the rack but leave everything else bolted to the roof of the car. There are 4 short filler strips that go in the 4 holes where the rack's feet used to be. This work is done entirely outside the car. If you want to put the rack back on pull the 4 strips out and remount the rack. With the fillers in there is a smooth "bump" running down each side of the car which rises about an inch above the roof.
2. You remove the rack and everything else above the roof metal. It is replaced by one long strip on each side. Once this is done the rack has no place to mount. To do this the liner has to be pulled off the ceiling to provide access to the mounting bolts. It is MUCH more work than 1. With these fillers in, as thecrash91 says, the "track" is recessed into the roof.
i pulled off the crossbars and want to get those caps as mentioned in option 1. what is the part number for them on onlinemazdaparts.com or what are they called so i can search for them elsewhere on google
ScratchNSniff
Undisputed Parts God
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- Way to Many
^^^I have a set of filler strips if you are interested...feel free to make an offer...
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- Protege5 2003
Look in the for sale section and if there aren't any, start a thread asking for them. New from the dealer they were some outrageous amount - I do not remember how much, other than my reaction was "no way in hell am I paying that much for 4 little pieces of plastic!" Buying them used from a member of this board cost, if I recall correctly, $50.
i dunno now if im even going to want the caps. i pulled the rack with hopes of boosting my mpg but it only went up by 1mpg. pulling my rack off my civic would bring it up 3-5mpg. so i may just keep the rack on since it doesnt make much of a difference. however it does look nice without the rack. so ill have to think about it
These filler strips are what I want. That yellow P5 in the remove your roof rack how-to looks so much better without it and I've been thinking about it recently. Seeing a couple WTB's and stuff on the for sale board made me decide to go with it. Now I just need to get it going.
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- 03.5 YLW MSP
see sig for how-to....
(cheers)did the same,im with him ^^^
though it was a bit of a pain in the ass to remove the roof rack, ie. having to take out the headliner,etc. but it was well worth it.
mine has the filler strips
These are probably the only pics i have of that show enough of them
yea...those arent the filler strips, lol.
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- Protege5 2003
Initially if you leave the car like that no water will come in. However, I expect eventually the bolts will rust, and after that so will the roof metal around the bolts, and after that, there will be leakage. With the caps in place very little water should get in there and it should greatly reduce the rate at which rust forms.
Unlikely that missing rail caps will change the MPG. Probably the air flow goes right over the short gaps and the difference in drag would be unmeasurably small. The rack itself is a different matter, since it sticks up into the airflow.
