June 19th, 2005 | 
Author: Holy flipping shit, what a f**king pain in the ass.
That about sums up the quality and install of the Olympic Top Hat Roof Rack for my Jeep Cherokee in a nutshell.
As mentioned before, this rack arrived a little over three weeks ago. I have spent a large portion of the past three weekends getting this… thing installed on my jeep. It got the to point this past Saturday when I ‘lost it’ (just a bit) and attacked the bastard with various implements including, but not limited to, a dremel armed with a collection of carbide bits, an angle grinder and the omnipresent BFH**. The wife suggested I return it. Actually, it was more like ‘For the love of God! Will you just take the goddam thing apart and send it back!’. She just didn’t understand; By this point it had become all about the principal of the thing.
I knew I had a problem when I first opened the box. There’s just too many parts for a roof rack. Another suprise lies in the fact that the front of an XJ roof is wider than the rear of an XJ roof. Olympic knows this, they even mention it in the install directions (which is all ambiguous text and very few pictures). Do they do anything about it? hell no. The crossbar they give you for the back (which is too wide for the back) is the same size as the Crossbar for the front (which is too short for the front). In fact, they’re the exact same crossbar. This leads to even more fun later in the install.
The basket assembly was almost as fun. The holes rarely lined up so many had to be re-drilled and otherwise ‘adjusted’. Then I ran across something which makes me wonder if Olympic ever even bothered to assemble the product themselves. The top and bottom of the basket are connected by 10 support bars. The instructions call for each support bar to be installed in this order: Eye bolt, washer, top basket bar, washer, spacer, washer, bottom basket bar, washer, nut. Problem is, and its a fairly decent problem, with all those washers and the spacer, there’s barely enough thread left to install the nut. Barely doesn’t sound too bad until you realize that 6 of these support bars have to attach the basket to the crossbars as well. It just doesn’t fit. The eye bolts are not long enough to reach. in the end I had to lose the two insides washers on all 10 bars and grind all the spacers down to get enough thread for the nuts.
The next challenge was getting the bolts in the basket to line up with all 6 holes in the crossbars. That sucked.
I had to resort to using ratchet straps to compress the bars and attempt to bring the holes into alignment. Not an easy thing to do since a couple of the support brackets where just welded on wrong. A good composite shot of the ratchet straps, hole misalignment and really bad welding job can be found right here. No seriously, this picture shows just how bad the product is. Go look at it. I’ll wait. This is pretty much the point where I said screw it, broke out the dremel and wound up about 30 minutes later with a jeep covered in metal shavings (and a installed roof rack).
(side note: that reminds me… While working on the rack I had a bit of a slip while using the dremel on high speed which caused it to kick back into my hand. It travelled from about midway down my pinky finger until it bound up in the leather near the palm of my Craftsman mechanics gloves. What would have easily been a trip to the emergency room (or at the very least a lot of duct tape) was avoided by a $20 pair of gloves. Boys and girls, never, EVER skimp on tools or safety equipment. It just ain’t worth it).
The paint sucks also. A tool so much as touches the rack and you’ve got bare metal. Good thing I happened to have a pint of Rustolem flat black laying around (would have preferred Por-15 but oh well).
Final verdict: Come on, if I actually have to tell you….
If you’re even actually still considering this product, give olympic about a year to work out the bugs and be sure to check the return policy before you buy it.
The photos of the install have been uploaded to the Gallery.
** Big F**king Hammer
edited 9-6-06 to correct broken image links.
edit3-8-09: image links broken since I took the Gallery site offline. They’ll be added to this post or placed on another image gallery soon.
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The next time I see your Jeep somewhere — not that I have in probably five or six months — I’m going to leave a note on the windshield that will say in its entirety, “NICE RACK!”
Wow, sounds like a pain in the butt. When I installed my Congo Cage and Kilamanjaro rack, I’d have to say the assembly was pretty easy, the most difficult part was getting the Torx bolts out of the jeep.
thanks..you just saved me 400 bucks. will go with the surco rack or kargo master.
Thank man! You just saved me money as well. I had it set in stone that I was gonna pick this up in a few months.
I think that making a sandwich would be tough for you, ass.
Isn’t the Internet great? It just brings out the best in people.
I think that making a sandwich would be tough for you, ass.
Comments like that are exactly what I’m talking about. I sent the following email to the address given for that post (it looked legit enough):
So do you work for Olympic or do you make it a habit to insult people on the internet with statements you would most likely never say to someone in a normal face to face conversation?
Its been a little over a week and still no response.
I’m sorry you’re having such a rough time with this rack. I appreciate the write-up though because I was going to purchase one of these today! I already had my mind made up and was shopping for this rack when I ran across your blog. I will not be purchasing one now. Thanks again!