Custom DK Fit Kit for 4 Rhino-Rack 2500 Series Roof Rack Legs - Naked Roof

Video Transcript for Installation: Custom DK Fit Kit for 4 Rhino-Rack 2500 Series Roof Rack Legs on a 2022 Ford Edge

Hey, it's Ethan here at etrailer. Today, we're gonna be taking a look at showing you how to install the Rhino-Rack Vortex Aero roof rack system on our 2022 Ford Edge. So with the Edge, we don't have any raised or flush rails. So if we want to get larger, longer accessories up on our roof whether that be on the sports and recreation side like kayaks, snowboard carriers, something like that, or on just the storage component whether you want roof boxes or roof baskets. A little bit more storage up on your roof. In either case, you're gonna need a roof rack system like the one we have here to do that.

So just check it out. With the system we have right now, the crossbars are 54 inches long so we can see we don't have a ton of overhang at all. Maybe enough to get some kind of clamp-on accessory out or on the side here, but not enough that I'm gonna be hitting my head when I'm getting in and out and it doesn't extend past the width of the vehicle. So that's a nice size overall. The system also has a 165-pound weight capacity.

Keeping in mind though that your roof will have a different rating, so always double checked. Make sure that that's within that. But if you do, then you can get 165 pounds worth of stuff up here. Keeping in mind also that the crossbars, the towers and the feet also weigh something. So subtract that, go from there.

Here we can take a look at this vortex strip that runs along the top channel of our crossbars. So it's gonna help cut down on some of that wind noise, allow the wind to pass over it without making too much noise and keeping that drag in play. This top channel is where you would store a lot of your accessories. If they do have that T-track option, then just slide in there and tighten down. We will have to trim this up to make this fit though.

On the end here, you can see the elliptical shape the crossbars have. It's also gonna work to make things a little bit more aerodynamic just 'cause it does cut down on some of that wind noise and drag in conjunction with the strips on the top. On the bottom here, you would also have a measurement strip typically. But as you'll see in the install portion, we've just left that out in our case. Be curious to know how much height you're gonna be adding to your car. The whole design is relatively low profile, especially compared to some other designs out there. The towers stick up a little bit. But in the center where it's gonna matter, you're only adding about 4 1/2 inches to the overall height of your system. If you're curious to know if you can leave these on when you're storing this in your garage or you're going anywhere with clearance issues, that's the number one keep in mind. Also keeping in mind the fact that, once you start loading accessories up on there, you're gonna be adding even more height. Your crossbars are gonna be made of aluminum, so they're gonna be really lightweight but also durable and easy to work with. They're gonna have a black powder coat finish as well which is gonna make them less susceptible to rust, weather, and corrosion and some other metal types. So you're gonna have these up on your roof and the elements bringing things wherever you need them to go. So it's nice that they're light, durable, and they're gonna hold up too long-term use. On the end here, we do have the ability to lock the end caps of our crossbars. So if we do have accessories mounted in that T-track channel, you won't be able to get them out unless you have the key. You can also upgrade this to a metal lock core, which brings us down to the towers. The first thing we'll point out is that these also do have a lock core on them as well. So you can get that and you can key them alike to make sure it's all under one system and then you lock these end caps to your towers, so you won't be able to access the hardware inside. Even if you do though, the bolt we need to get the clamps out to get the roof rack system off is all also a security key which is less easy to get off than a standard bolt. So you have a little bit of security inside the hardware, outside as well. If we take this end cap off again, we can see how our hardware interacts with our clamps and how the clamp interacts with the vehicle. So you see we do have a naked roof. So our clamps need to hinge on the inside of our doors here. They have nice pads underneath to protect the paint and the car overall. We've got a really strong insecure grip down here as well. The clamps in the back and the front are very similar in installing, but are slightly different in size overall again to fit the car. So throughout I've mentioned bits and pieces about the installation process. It's mostly really straightforward to be honest. It's just a matter of knowing what the pieces are and which side or which crossbar that they correspond to. They do a really good job of laying all that out and we'll walk you through that process now. For the install, the first thing we'd like to do is to lay everything out and make sure we know where it is and what it is. So we have our crossbars, we have the towers, we have the end caps for the towers, we have our bases as well as the pads for the front and the rear, we have our clamps, we have the tools we need to tighten everything down and take our end cap off. We recommend throwing in a tape measure 'cause we will have to get some measurements. First step you'll likely need to do is use that provided key to open up our end caps and get those off. And typically, the weather and the measurement strips are stored in size so you have to tilt the hole crossbar to shake those out. In our case, we already have those out of the way but we will need to keep these end capped off. So we're gonna keep that step. Your next step will likely be to use the key provided just to fit into this lock core to open up the end caps on each of your towers respectively which will expose the hardware. Next, we will be fitting these rubber pads onto our feet. So we just want to use these arrows. You see there's one on each. We wanna make sure we line those up and we will fit the outcrops here into the openings on the plastic pad. Just a matter of sort of pushing it through, just like this. We don't necessarily need to know which of these is which just yet. All of these plastic feet are the same. Just make sure we're lining up the arrows and repeat this process for the next three. Now we will get the assembled pad as well as the feet onto our towers. So we have, again, our arrow here facing outward. We have the arrow on top facing outward. We wanna make sure that when we attach it to the towers, we also have it facing outward just like this. So we'll fit it right into here and we'll just snap right into place. Now we have our towers assembled. We should have all the end caps off of our crossbars. We're gonna get this fit into place. So this is 9-7, which means on the bottom of the pad, you're gonna check the instructions on your fit kit and make sure that you have the right pad for the right tower. In our case, this is the front right crossbar pad. So I'm going to put it on the right side of our crossbar here. Just slide it into place roughly for now and then I'll repeat this process. Once you have the pads and the bases on our towers, those are assembled. Now we're gonna get them fit onto our crossbars. So we should have all the end caps removed at this point. And now we have the right pad here. You can tell by the number on the bottom here it says 697 as the last three digits. Line that up with the instructions given to you in your fit kit. In our case, this is the front right tower, so I'm going to put it on the front right crossbar here. Just slide it into place. Do that roughly for now. Get the left tower installed as well and we'll come back and get those measurements to line those up properly. Here's where we'll use that measurement strip that we talked about in the first step. So in our case, we're not going to trim this up. In your case, you would just trim it to your desired length if you wanted to. But for the sake of demonstration, I'm just gonna show you a little bit about how it works. So you would fit it in to the underside of your crossbar here. The number we're shooting for is 150. So I'm gonna slide my towers to that number. This is just for the front crossbar. Our back crossbar number will be different. So we're gonna line it up to 150. Repeat this process on the other side. Once we have our towers measured out, we're going to use the provided tool to tighten everything place. It's got a built-in torque spec. So basically what it does is once it's desired or once it's reached its desired torque, this line at the top here will be a straight line and you don't wanna torque it any further than that. In the case of our setup though, I'm gonna leave mine a little bit looser just because I couldn't use the measurement strip properly. So if you trust your measurements, go ahead and tighten it down fully. In my case, I'm gonna leave it just loose enough that I can slide these back and forth and make some micro adjustments once I get it up there. Now with our towers on our crossbars, we'll get it set loosely or roughly in place. There are specific measurements that we we're shooting for, but for now we just kind of wanna get it on there, get it situated and then we'll come back with those measurements and figure out exactly where it needs to be. To find that measurement, we're going to go from the center of our door jam here to the front of the base. So in our case, we have a fabric tape measure, got it in place. We're looking for a number of 150 centimeter or millimeters or 15 centimeters on both sides. So right about there. We'll make sure the other side has the same measurement. For the rear crossbars, the towers are identical so it doesn't matter which side they're on as long as the arrows are facing out again. So we'll slide those into our tracks on the underside again, just like how we did on the first side. Making sure that base plate is lined up. But the only thing different in this case is that the measurement we're looking for is gonna be 140 rather than 150. So we use that strip again and this time we're looking for 140 millimeters rather than 150. Again, in your case, you will trim this up and use it as they direct you in the instructions. For our case, we're just gonna set it at 140 and repeat it on the other side. Once we have our towers in place again, same thing as the front crossbar, just set it down gently on the other side. The pad should help and then we'll get it roughly in place. Come back and get our measurement this time from the center of one crossbar to the center of the other. For this next measurement, I'm gonna use the tape measure that I suggested at the beginning. I know for the last measurement I used a fabric tape measure. That's just 'cause it did have the metric system on it which is what the instructions give most easily, but they do give instructions in inches as well. So I wanted to provide options for both. In this case, we're looking for 700 millimeters, but that really breaks down to 27. The number they give is 9/16, but we are just going for about 5/8 in our case. So from the middle of one to the middle of the other, looking for about 27 and 5/8. So right about there is pretty good. We'll make sure we match that number up on the other side then we should be all right. We're gonna start with our rear crossbar clamps. So we're gonna open up our door. First thing we're gonna need to do is unthread this bolt just to get it out of the way. We're gonna need to reuse that. On the case of our rear crossbar, as you can see, we have this number here. We're looking for 465 as our clamps on the back. Gonna be pretty much the same process for both the front and the back, but we wanna make sure that we differentiate those clamps 'cause one set is just a little bit longer. So we'll just thread that bolt back in. Once we have the clamps flush against the bottom of the door frame here until we get to the point where we can't thread it by hand anymore and then we'll use the provided tool again to get it torque down to the proper specifications of the tool. This has it's built in. Again, we wanna make sure that we turn it enough to where this line goes straight horizontal. In this case though, I'm only gonna tighten this one to about 50% or so. Do this on the other side, tighten it down, and then come back and tighten both of them all the way just so we're not pulling one way too far or the other. Here on the front crossbar, to get our clamps set up, I just wanna reassure you that we are gonna do the same thing. Open up the door, but the only difference is going to be the number on the back of the clamps. So double check that with the guide on the fit kit instructions and then otherwise it is the exact same process. Just unthreading this bolt till it comes out, feeding the clamps up in there, and tightening the bolt back down to the torque setting on the tool provided. Once you have all your clamps set up, it's a good idea just to give both of your crossbars a shake. Make sure everything is fixed, sturdy. Right now it seems like we're good. So all we're gonna do is replace our end caps starting with our crossbars. Let's fit this in and tighten that with the provided tool. Same thing with the end caps on our towers. You'll see these notches here. Just fit those in on that left side and then use the provided key and the lock cores to lock those up and then the install is done. Overall, I really like that this system is super easy to install. It's gonna be really rugged. That weather ship on top is gonna cut down on a lot of that wind noise and that drag. Even though it is there, you still have options to use your T-track accessories as well as your clamp-on accessories. So in general, if you are looking for a way to extend the storage on your vehicle, get some larger items up on top or again on the sports and recreation side of things if you want to get a kayak up there, some skis, some snowboards, whatever you wanna do, a roof rack system like this one is a great way to start. This again was just a quick look at the Rhino-Rack Vortex Aero bars and the entire roof rack system, how it fits and how it installs on our 2022 Ford Edge.