Thule foot kit height for gutter kit/rack on Westy

[oldschool84]

Hi -

I saw the thread on racks already - just checking with folks that might have Thule, which is the rack system that I have a bunch of stuff for on our current vehicle. The Westy that I just bought came with the GoWesty gutter adapters installed in the roof fairly close to the top. I measured this morning and it looks like the gutter attachments are put in close enough to the top that a standard Thule rack with 5 inches should work. There are foot kits on sale now - I could get one with 5 inches or 8 inches - I think the 11 inch foot set which would put the racks some 7 inches off the roof top is a bit unnecessary -

Can folks who have rack sets offer some advice about the choices below? The other thing about the current mounts is that they are in the recessed grooves in the roof and are 78 inches from outside end of one gutter attachment to the outside end of the other - this would put the bars about 73 or so inches apart I think - pretty long span which is ok for a kayak but I think I have to do some kind of adapter work to accommodate bike racks. I am thinking of making something out of the Thule front fork holder and a custom cut piece of PVC pipe to span the gap across the two bars and hold the rear wheel (using the Thule buckle thingy). I'm not keen about putting bikes on the roof of the Westy due to height worries every now and then but I don't feel like the back hatch is what I want to use instead.

5 inch standard Thule foot pack –
Pro – puts all of rack lower can closer to the roof and ground for putting stuff on/off and for driving into wherever I can store it in the summer without removing the rack all the time.
Con – mounts may be very close to roof so not clear if there would be enough clearance to put in kayak mounting stuff, etc – basically clearance below the rack to install the different accessories.

8 inch Thule foot pack –
Pro – more clearance so definitely good that way
Con – just going to be higher by another 3 inches, putting everything else up that much higher whcch might be an issue for getting into garage for storage

Any other things to think about?

The dimension I gave for 78 inches is between the front and back bars, not width

[Tom Powell]

[raoul mitgong]

These are the standard Yakima gutter towers in the pic below. I think the Thule 300s are about the same height.
The base of the ARG is about 1-3/8" down from the theoretical sharp corner that the two planes would make if there wasn't a radius (hope that makes sense).
Previous owner picked the location but I think it was a good choice to be close to the radius where the roof is stiffer.
I've got the 8" Thule 387s on my tintop, that would be way too tall for my westy.

-d
_________________
84 Westy with a 2.1 (Groover)
86 Tintop Syncro (Crow)
86 Tintop Syncro to Westy project (Tom Servo)
91 Westy (Only the top 12 inches of this van (a burn victim))