The Jeep
I have a Kargo Master rack on my TJ… this is a great rack that is easy to use, strong and looks better than most of the racks out there… but at 30 miles an hour it began to make a low hum, 40 mph and it sound like a wind tunnel and 50 mph and above sounded like you had a set of subwoofers kickin at maximum volume on either side of your head. So load that if you have the top down at 60 mph you had to scream just to hear the person sitting beside you.
I couldn’t take it, three days after I installed the rack I made a little air foil out of a piece of sheet metal I had stripped from an old microwave. I cut it to shape, painted it black and rivited it around the front bar of the rack… this helped and was good for the time being, but there was still a good bit of noise.
I wasn’t satisfied however and began looking for a better solution. So I called the manufacture Kargo Master, but they did not offer anything, looked to Yakima, Thule to see if they made anything that would work, but nothing really seemed to be the right fit. I thought about making a full length air foil like the small I had made. I finally decided to go with a Yakima Fairing.
So I got on ebay to see if I could find one cheap… I made a bid and won. A few days later it arrived. I tried to fit it to may Jeep, but it was the older Yakima Fairing that was curved slightly on the top and bottom. I wasn’t able to see this in the listing on ebay, but I had a feeling that it may actually be curved on both top and bottom. So I abandoned the idea of upgrading my Jeep and stuck with the small air foil I had made. I ended up installing the Yakima Fairing on my Wife’s Nissan.
Last weekend I finally installed my Yakima bars and basket on my Jeep rack and this was more than my little air foil could handle and there was a good bit of new wind noise from the basket mixed in with the low hum of the rack itself… so back to the drawing board I went. I thought about this for a few days and remembered the Yakima Fairing that I had bought that was now sitting in the corner of my garage because it did not fit my wife’s new Commander either. So I dug it out of the garage corner and began looking at it and how I could make this work.
I took a 4 foot level and squared it to the bottom of the Fairing, scored a line with my knife. I then squared the top of the Fairing with the level and scored it as well. Next I took my Jig Saw and cut the top and bottom along the score mark to square up both top and bottom. Next I took the rubber foot that came off the bottom and fitted it back to the bottom… good it still fit perfectly. I put the Fairing back together and installed it on my Yakima bars and headed for the highway for a road test. It worked great the noise was reduced a good bit and then I hit 30 mph and the thing flipped over the top of my Yakima bar and landed on the basket. So I went back to the garage to figure out what to do next.
While standing in the garage staring at the Fairing trying to figure out how to secure it to my Kargo Master rack without drilling into it, I decided I’d use heavy duty zip ties. But there was one other problem I had noticed before it flipped on the highway… the Fairing sagged between the Yakima arms that fasten the Fairing to the Yakima Bars.
So I jumped in my Jeep, went to Lowes and picked up some heavy duty zip ties and a 3/4″ x 3′ aluminum channel… paid the cashier, jumped in the Jeep and headed back home.
In the garage I got out my drill, pop rivets, and some spare bolts. I cut the aluminum channel to the length I needed to fix it to the Fairing to keep it from sagging in between the Yakima mounting arm brackets. Next I marked the aluminum channel, drilled holes into it and the Fairing every 8″, bolted and rivited it to the Fairing. Next I drilled holes a long the bottom of the Fairing for the zip ties to pass throught and finally I super glued the rubber foot back to the bottom edge of the Fairing. Next, I climbed my Jeep to begin installing it again. I then positioned the Fairing so the rubber boot rested on the front Kargo Master Rack bar. Tighten the Yakima mounting arm braket bolts down and zip tied it to the front rack bar.
In the first photo you can see how the top and bottom edges have been squared up and where I used the zip ties to fasten the leading edge of the Fairing to my Kargo Master Rack.
In second photo you can see how I fastened the aluminum channel to the back side of the Fairing and where the zip tie lock head is positioned.
And third photo is the final results of the complete install.
So finally I was ready for a road test. I jumped back in my Jeep and headed for the highway. I hit 30 mph on the ramp leading into the highway… nothing to be heard… good.
I got to the highway and kicked it… 40, 50, 60… 65…. 70 mph nothing but wind in my face, no noise to be heard other than the normal wind and tire hum you can expect when you’re rollin down the highway with your top down. 75, 80 mph… wow! This thing works great, no vibration, no rack noise, no wind noise from the basket. I fact I believe it is even more quite with the top down than it ever was with out the rack.
I drove for 5 miles, pulled off the highway and stopped in the local park. Dropped the rack back, raised the soft top and re-connected the Jeep rack. Now for the softtop road test. I hit the highway, 40, 50, 60 ,70… 75 mph. Still no noise to be heard and my softtop had less wind slap than it ever has had. Great!!! I headed back home. I got to the garage and installed the side windows, and door uppers… back to the highway, down the ramp, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70…. 75 still no noise! This is the quiestest my Jeep has ever been going down the road. Other than a few wind noises coming from the Jeep and the tires, there is no noise at all coming from the top of my Jeep. This was well worth the small amount of time it took to modify the Yakima Fairing, I’ll finally be able to talk with the wife and friends in my Jeep again, I can actually hear my radio again and my ears are not ringing from the constant hum I had before the Fairing was installed.
If you have a rack installed on your Jeep and have wind noise coming from it, you should definitely look into something such as this to reduce the noise if not eliminate it completely. I hope this helps.