Search the Community

I installed a set of Yakima landing pads (landing pad 7) and control towers with 58" crossbars on my Cmax friday and yesterday (about 6 hours total, probably much less if I had to do it again). A bunch of fully captioned/descriptioned pictures are in an album in my media area, but I'll use the first post of this thread to do a full writeup of it. Most of the details are already in the captions, and I'll copy and expand on them here. [EDIT 3/1/14: The water tightness got tested in the latest rain storms that we finally got in SoCal this week. No sign of leakage at all] A few relevant details: Front Bar location: centered 11" back from the rear edge of the windshield glass Rear Bar location: centered 34" back from the center of the front bar (45" back from the windshield) Pad distance in from gutters (measured from center of the inner gap between the rubber and metal to the edge of the pad): about 0.5" (needs to be checked again, and probably should be a little further in to avoid internal roof structure pieces if you don't want to drop the headliner). The distance from the gutter edge to the hole centers is about 1.5" Most of it wasn't too difficult, but I took it pretty slow because it's a lot of disassembly (headliner) and some irreversible metal mods (drilling holes) in a brand new car. Here are the pictures, in order (I should have done step by step of the headliner teardown/reassembly, too, but didn't...) For removing the headliner, I started at the back and just yanked on the trim pieces (trying to pull near fasteners as I could feel them). I didn't fully remove any of the trim pieces-- most were left hanging by a lower clip. The overhead mounted stuff (handles, visors) all come out with Torx T15 screws, but be careful with the springy handles-- they can be tricky to manage on reassembly. All the screws were the same size, though I kept them with their trim pieces just in case. Reassembly went front to back, and is basically massaging pieces into place, making sure clips align with holes, then pressing. The tools: pencil masking tape measuring tape small flat bladed screwdriver T15 torx driver touch up paint hammer center punch (to set drill hole locations) electric drill 1/8" drill bit 1/4" drill bit 25/64" drill bit deburring tool drill stops (made from PVC pipe) flexible video inspection scope (useful, not required) Headliner down from behind: Headliner down from the front, along the edge: Pics of things that can interfere with the install: Holes marked and punched: Holes drilled and the deburring tool. Use a hard drill stop like the PVC pipe I used. With larger drill bits, they can screw in and push a wrap of tape before you know it's happened (happened once, but with the headliner down it didn't cause any trouble). I gave them 0.25-0.5" to drill with. The sheet metal is thin, so 1/4" is plenty. Holes touched up with paint: Blind nuts (one installed, one on roof): Blind nuts-- I had to install in this orientation and then turn, and in some cases reach underneath to turn the nut in the carrier to avoid the internal rail. Two of them butted against the rail and deformed the carrier before I realized that's what was happening, so I had to insert the nuts from underneath by hand for those two (dropping them and looking for where they slid in the rails was very time consuming-- details in the picture descriptions). The next steps I didn't photograph because it's kind of messy with the silicone RTV, but it's exactly as described in the Yakima instructions: put a bead of silicone RTV (included with the landing pads) across the top of the nut gasket, then install the landing pad (thin base and plastic upper) over it and tighten. For the ones I had to insert from underneath by hand, it was easiest to partly drop the bolt in and then reach underneath to feel the bolt location with the nut. Here are close ups of the loose nuts. If you have to install them loose, the asymmetric side that's flat around the threaded hole faces the sheet metal: This is the back of the nut- it's symmetric and rounded around the threaded hole. This side faces away from the sheet metal: Front crossbar installed, with tape marking the center location so I can locate the rear bar: Almost finished-- all installed but I still have to reinstall the headliner.