Does anyone actually use the early bay Westy luggage rack?

[TomWesty]

I have a cargo bag that I keep on my carrier. It’s got my bus cover and some tools in it.
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[ccowx]

When I was a kid, Grandad and I used to go fishing for a week or so every summer. He had a 5.5 hp Johnson and the 5 gallon fuel tank on the rear rack of his '73. Also up there with it he had a set of "big wheel" wheels on a wooden frame that he used to move the 12' wooden rowboat we carried.

Grandad had put a roof rack made of 4x4's on there to hold the boat, so it was one heavily loaded Westy! I would imagine that the boat and all of it's rack and engine etc must have weighed in at about 500 pounds total. Much of that was not on the rear area, but it still was a good 150 pounds of heavy dense objects on the back alone. Never any problem, but I can imagine that it was not a great handler on the Hope-Princeton highway back in the day!

Chris

[RalphWiggam]

This makes me wonder if my bars on my 72 are weaker than others for some reason.

I can reach up there and flex the bars down toward the paint with 2 fingers easily.

[orwell84]

I drove from eastern Quebec to Montreal with 3 bikes on the roof rack. The roof rack held up but the old passenger tires did not. Had an old fashioned blow out on the Pierre LaPorte bridge with flying chunks of hot tire. Doesn’t look like it would hold much but it does.

[RalphWiggam]

Just went out and took some pics for science.

Excellent condition of original crossbars (pardon the dust):

Me pressing down on the center of that crossbar with 1 finger to make contact with the paint.

I dont know what Im missing here, but I do know I just bought 3 bundles of firewood and they weigh ~40lbs each. There is no way I could put a single bundle up there without destroying the paint under the bars.

[busdaddy]

Someone has been walking around up there in the past and has bent the bars, they should have a slight upwards bow. If you are concerned about the paint fold a cheap yoga mat in 1/2 and slide it between the bars and roof before loading it up.
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[vwwestyman]

Or perhaps the crossbars have been replaced by someone in the past with straight and less-rigid bars.
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Dave Cook

President, Wild Westerner Club

1978 Champagne Edition Westy, repowered to '97 Jetta TDI
1973 Wild Westerner
My Thing

[HermanDT2b]

During our 8500 kms/5300 miles road trip through Spain and Portugal we used our luggage rack to transport our SUP board under a custom made cargo net. Great solution, no problems at all.
If you can push the bars down hitting the roof that easy, they cannot be original! I replaced mines a couple of years ago and they don't bow at all.

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1972 Westfalia Camper (Helsinki interior)
1976 Panelvan

[NCdad]

My crossbars were damaged so I had a buddy fab up a rack out of conduit.
Haven’t had much on it but large parts I picked up at vw shows, but I know it holds 330 lbs easily.

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ROBERT
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