Thule roofracks on Minor ?

Post by **paulhumphries** » Tue Jan 30, 2007 11:56 am

Tomorrow I'm picking up the Austin Seven chassis I bought off eBay.
Seller says it's light and would easilly go on a roof rack.
Rather than taking the familly car and trailer I've decided to use my Minor for the 320 mile round trip.
I've dug out the old faithful ladder rack and fitted it to the car ready to set off early in the morning.
It's a decent item (8 mounting pads business type rather than cheap DIY) but ancient and well past it's best.
I've therefore made my mind up that it's time for a new one and fancy the THULE system that would allow, with different feet, fitment to other cars as well.
Anyone experinece of the THULE gutter fitment brackets and want to comment ?
Sorry but I'm only interested in THULE - not Halfords, Paddy Hopkirk etc .

Thanks

Paul Humphries.

Post by **Peetee** » Tue Jan 30, 2007 12:56 pm

I would imagine Thule roofracks are up to the job but is a Minor's gutter strong enough?

Post by **Kevin** » Tue Jan 30, 2007 1:36 pm

Sorry but I'm only interested in THULE - not Halfords, Paddy Hopkirk etc .

The other thing to take into account, is it designed for the Minor roof profile, the Minor specialists sell one that takes this into account, I think you need to contact the manufacturers to get the definitive answer.

Post by **Pyoor_Kate** » Tue Jan 30, 2007 6:52 pm

Well, I'd hazard a guess that it probably would be strong enough, given what I've carried on my roofrack. Whether it's a good idea or not is an entirely separate matter, and I've been known to change my mind about the good idea portion of the "using the roofrack to carry something heavy/big" during the journey.

I've no experience of the Thule one, I would say make sure it's got enough clearance. The roof of the minor is really very high, and a lot of roofracks don't fit properly

Post by **RogerRust** » Tue Jan 30, 2007 6:59 pm

Lateral thinking ..... How about putting the seat down and put it the boot . I wonder if you can get enough in to stabalise it???

Post by **Matt** » Tue Jan 30, 2007 7:02 pm

Im intending on putting a roof rack on the trav, but im not going to be putting much on it... im guessing 30-40kg max, but i might revise that when the racks on. (when all the gutters are fixed properly)

Post by **paulk** » Tue Jan 30, 2007 8:22 pm

Trouble with the thule ones I've seen (admittidly not on a Minor) Is that you need so many new bits each time you change cars its only the bars (the cheap bits) that get transfered. All the fancy gubins are quite car specific.

Post by **Pyoor_Kate** » Tue Jan 30, 2007 11:10 pm

I've just checked, the TV that I put on my roofrack was 44.1kg. I don't think that's the heaviest thing, but it's close on that...

Post by **ColinP** » Wed Jan 31, 2007 2:34 pm

Paul,

Back in the late 60's we had a gutter rack which we used with a Mirror Class Dinghy. That's about 112 lbs or so.

Didn't seem to cause a structural problem (but there's been a lot of water over the cars since then!), I wasn't driving, so I can say how the handling was affected though.

Cheers,

Colin

Post by **dunketh** » Thu Feb 01, 2007 2:25 pm

Provided its a gutter mount it should be fine.

I've got an ancient set of thule roof bars which would fit if they had enough clearance between the mount and the bar.

Thats the problem - finding racks that'll fit over the huge 'st pauls' roof.