[Parking in the car]Painted & modified roof luggage rack! Greatly upgraded appearance & convenience! (superior)

The roof of the Vamos that the author is driving is not equipped with a luggage rack bar but a luggage rack.
The luggage rack can hold larger and more luggage, which is quite convenient for small cars. The business luggage rack on Vamos is practical but not trendy at all.
Therefore, the author carried out the coloring and improvement of the luggage rack a while ago.

As long as a little improvement is made, the convenience can be greatly improved, and the major problem of the luggage rack has been successfully solved. The improvement method and operation process will be introduced in detail below.

table of contents
●Iron luggage rack
●Colors and pigments
●Rust conversion agent
●Luggage rack painted
●Installation of wooden strips
●Material
●Assembly
● "Load board" painted
●Settings
●Complete

iron luggage rack

The author uses a common business luggage rack with a layer of electroplating on the outside of the steel.

The side is designed with a height of 12cm to prevent items from falling. You can also tie straps or ropes on this side, which is quite convenient.

But its appearance is as you can see, it looks a lot like a hydropower engineering vehicle. Although the author doesn't pay much attention to this point, if you think about it carefully, few people will install this kind of luggage rack on their family cars.

This luggage rack is practical and inexpensive. But because it is made of iron, the surface will rust.

In addition, the author often parks the car in a wet place, which is more likely to rust. At the beginning, the author also planned to deal with the rust. It happened that the rust became more and more obvious a while ago, so I decided to start before it became more serious.

Colors and Pigments

When it comes to iron roof luggage racks, the luggage racks of Volkswagen Type 2 and Rover Mini (not the current BMW) come to mind.

At first, the author used the Mini’s luggage rack as a model and wanted to paint it in cream color, but because the author’s body is black, painting it in cream color does not fit the overall feeling. If I choose the wrong color, the appearance will show a feeling of "working hard to process", and I will feel embarrassed.

So in the end, the author chose a water-based paint that is not too conspicuous, matte black, odorless and easy to apply.

rust converter

Rust must be removed before painting.

If the rust is not removed, the rust remaining under the paint surface will slowly expand and corrode to the inside, which is quite troublesome.

But it is a very laborious job to completely remove the rust with a steel brush and sandpaper.

At this time, the rust converter can be used. It is able to convert the red rust into a barrier layer of black iron oxide. It turns milky white when applied as shown in the picture.

Use the principle of red rust inhibitor to convert it into black iron oxide to prevent it from continuing to oxidize (produce red rust), and then block the surface with iron oxide to inhibit oxidation.

The author believes that this is the most effective way to prevent red rust from becoming more serious.

After removing the rust that cannot be removed with a steel brush, this can be used to create a black iron oxide barrier layer on the metal surface with red rust.

It is quite effective as long as the rust is not so severe that it becomes many layers, the rust conversion agent cannot penetrate and stay on the surface, and the interior continues to rust.

The place where the rust converter is applied will eventually turn into a layer of black film. This time I will cover it with a layer of black paint, so there is no need to worry about this part at all.

Luggage rack painted

If possible, it would be better to paint with oil-based paints. I would choose water-based paints because the brushes can be washed with water after use, which is much easier than oil-based paints.

Before painting, the author has washed it with clean water for a while. Because the luggage rack has been exposed to wind and sun for a long time, there is no oil residue on it. If you want to process on new products, you should pay attention to the fact that the paint cannot be applied without degreasing.

After the pre-work such as rusting is done, paint with paint with a brush. Since the author is not a professional, there will still be a little trace of paint dripping. And there is no way to apply thick paint at one time, so I had to repeat the operation process of "applying the first layer of paint, then turning it over and applying the second layer after it dries" about twice.

Latches

There are three groups of tripods in this luggage rack, and there are three crossbars connected with the tripods, and there are three crossbars between each tripod.

The length between the front leg and the rear leg is about 1.8m, and there are 9 horizontal bars that can be placed, each with an interval of 20cm.

This size is just right for objects with a certain length and hardness, but if you want to hold soft items such as bags, the interval of 20cm is too wide and not easy to use.

And these 9 storage bars are also mentioned at the beginning of the article as "a big problem all the time".

When the storage rack is driven to 70km/h with nothing installed, the 9 cross bars will start to make a loud noise. Because the sound is too loud, ladders or wood will be installed on the frame to suppress the vibration when driving at high speed, even if the author does not use these things at the moment.

Therefore, when the painting process is carried out, this part is also processed and installed with longitudinal wooden strips. In this way, soft items such as bags can be loaded, and the crossbar will no longer make a sound.

Material

The main material is cheap wood battens that weigh just 1 x 4 x 6ft.

It happened to be 225 yen a piece at a hypermarket, and I bought 10 pieces. At this time, the luggage rack had been removed for painting, so I put the wooden pieces I bought into the trial.

First, try to visually pick up the 8 wooden bars on the spacer on the luggage rack. Length 6ft about 183cm. Because the length is just right, no additional processing is required.

Then peel off the barcode sticker. Because the wooden strips are cheap, there are staples that were nailed randomly on it. It took the author more than ten minutes to tear and pull them out.

Even more annoying are the barcode stickers that stick tightly to the metal parts. It is very difficult to remove without leaving adhesive residue.

Then use the calculated value to match the actual take-out interval.

to assemble

After arranging the wooden strips, in the state of putting them on the luggage rack, lock the wood on the bottom to fix them. One wooden strip is fixed with 4 screws.

This kind of screw basically does not need to be drilled in advance, just use an automatic screwdriver to turn it in, but sometimes cheap wood will crack when drilled directly into the screw.

This time the author bought cheap ones, so even though it was a little troublesome, I still adopted the method of drilling holes and then drilling nails. In the end, the wooden strips still had some cracks.

Finally, as in the picture, add another layer of horizontal wooden strips at the end, so that some cracks will not be too conspicuous.

This horizontal wooden bar also acts as a baffle to prevent items from sliding back and forth. This is also the design that the author made half of it suddenly.

This is also the advantage of using cheap materials to cooperate with real objects to adapt to the situation.

Where the front, middle and rear are connected to the three tripods, wooden strips are used to make a design that can clamp the crossbar, and the loading board is completed. The picture shows the back of the carrier board.

Original source:Painting & custom on the roof carrier! Appearance and usability have improved dramatically!
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