Rhino-Rack Recovery Track Flat Carrier for Pioneer Platform Rack

Video Transcript for An In-Depth Look at the Rhino-Rack Recovery Track Flat Carrier for Pioneer Platform Rack

Randy: Hey guys! It's Randy here at etrailer.com. Now, the Pioneer Rack from Rhino Rack is becoming very, very popular amongst just regular travelers, your off road type people and over-landers. So we get a lot of questions about different accessories that fit it.The one we're looking at today is a Recovery Track Holder. This is a flat style. It's going to mount right into the Pioneer Rack and it allows you to secure your recovery tracks down and keep them contained.This frees up space inside your vehicle so you can get more stuff in there, but also after you've used these, they're going to be dirty, sandy, muddy, snowy, something like that. This allows you to keep them outside so you're not getting all of that dirt inside.Now, don't get me wrong, I know these recovery tracks aren't the biggest or baddest ones that are out there but I like that even on the smaller sides, it's going to fit all the way up to the largest recovery tracks out there.

This is really going to help. We've got several different choices on widths of our bolts. We can make sure that it's going to come through the holes in our track and these are infinitely adjustable forward and back as far as the length.Something I like about this set up, all stainless steel hardware so this is going to be outside, you know you're probably going to leave these mounted on. They look cool having your tracks up there where people can see them. Think you're going to leave these one so that stainless steel hardware is nice.

Stainless steel bolts here that come up and through to hold them down and this is going to give us from the base, say right here underneath that track, when we have the knob all the way up to where the threads are even with the nut, it's about two and half inches so, I'd say, especially the way the tracks are going to kind of fit down in this contour here, you can hold something about three inches thick or so once it's compressed and again, the width here is fully adjustable. You can bring that in or out, several different options there to choose from.So all in all, it's going to be a good way to get them on top, it's going to be . get them stored. But it is going to take up some room. This is going to take up some storage space up here and I don't necessarily like that.

Rhino Rack offers another kit, it's going to mount in our outside track here and then that's actually going to have our tracks over here on the side. I think it looks cooler, looks a little bit more serious, but I also think by freeing up that extra space, we're not going to have to worry about these being in the way. It's going to allow us to get more cargo up top, it'll allow us to get our fuel tanks, our jacks, things like that if we're off-roading, get our cargo box or our cargo bag if we're taking a trip so, all in all, while this is good, it works very effectively and there's nothing at all wrong with it, I just prefer that other type.Now, I just want to run through a little bit of spacing for you to help ensure it's going to work with the tracks that you've chosen. We're going to go from the center of this hole to the center of that hole, that's going to be our widest mounting point and in that position, we've got about 10 and three quarters of an inch on center. We've got our narrower holes here.

Those are going to be about three and a quarter. It's about four and three quarter to the inside of our oblong holes that we use and then it's about six center to center to the outside there.You could also use this hole and this hole, or this hole and this hole in any configuration you want so you can see regardless of the spacing or the holes that you have, it should work out pretty well for you.Now as far as the assembly process is going to go, we're going to start with our bracket. We need the two spacer blocks, we need our two little screws, couple flat washers and lock washers. All this is going to be in your kit and in this area is where we're going to put that. We can choose any of the three holes. In general application here, though, that middle one's going to work out the best.Onto our bolt, we're going to put, we're going to do a lock washer, then a flat washer, so lock washer on, flat washer on and we're just going to thread that in. We just need to get this started. We're not going to tighten it down. Do the same thing for the other side.Next, we're going to decide which of the holes we're going to use for our tracks. The holes on all these tracks are going to be a little bit different so you want to adjust yours accordingly. Ours line up with the very outside of both of these elongated holes. We've got out bolt that comes up from the back. Got a lock washer that goes down and on and then we've got our nut. Now, since this is an oblong hole, our lock washer has to be in a very specific orientation. We want the gap on that washer to be siting on top of steel, so we're going to bring that down like this and then I'm going to hold that nut with a 17 millimeter, and then I'm going to tighten it from the bolt side. That's going to keep that lock washer from wanting to move around on us and this can be a little bit of a challenge to get done.There you can see what we're looking for. You got that small slot right there, it's resting on top of the steel so we know it's going to be in good shape. Now, as an alternative, you can . let's say you need your bolt to be right there in the center. That's not very good for a lock washer because it's not going to work properly. So you can pick up a stainless steel washer, drop that down and on, and then that's going to give that lock washer something to bite into. Now, that washer is not provided so you'll have to pick up your own, but it can make it just a little bit more adaptable.That's what it looks like assembled. We're ready to head to the roof with it and we've already got our other bracket installed up there so we'll bring this one up and show you how it goes.Now, depending on the configuration of how you've got your platform all set up, we can use these to drop down in this way, just like that. Slide them into the track and that's going to have our tracks running front and back but we also have the option of running them in this way. That way we can set our tracks side to side. That's kind of going to be up to you and your situation and how you like them the most. For our demo, we're just going to go this way with it. Bring it up and now this one we've got set into place. That's where we want the front to be. The back we can adjust in or out, just depending on your tracks to ensure that our bolts are going to line up.All right, so we're going to line that on our front side. Bring our backside into where we want it. That looks good there. Now we'll just take the provided tool and we'll tighten down our bolts here on each side. Now there is a torque meter in the tool. Basically, we're going to tighten this down until we bend this tab . you can see it's got a little hook in it, we're going to tighten that down until we straighten that out. Don't need any more torque then that. It's not holding a great deal of weight on, of course.All right, that looks good there. Same thing on the front, then it's just a matter of getting our large knobs ran down and on to hold our tracks in place.And you can see, once we got our knobs tightened down, our tracks are held in spot really well and we won't have any issues with those moving around. Now, the big question is, would I buy this Of course, you'd have to have a Pioneer Rack, first. That's first and foremost. But I got to be honest, I wouldn't go with this set up. I don't like taking up this kind of rack space on top. The one we mentioned earlier that comes off the side, kind of keeps them on an angle over here I think's more accessible. We're not climbing up on top trying to get them down so, for my money, I'd go with the other kit but that's completely up to you.