"bits" wrote in message
...
I would like to carry two fiberglass kayaks on my 1993 Toyota Previa. It
has a factory rack in place now. Is anyone carrying kayaks on their Previa?
Did you replace the factory rack and if so what did you replace it with?
Each kayak I want to carry weighs about 50 lbs. I see my existing rack can
be removed as each rail has two mounting points. My existing rack seems a
bit flimsy to use for transporting kayaks. Any information you have around
the 1993 Previa roof rack / options would be appreciated.



Right now I carry the kayaks using a Yakima system on my F150 Supercrew
but I would like to bring the van into the picture to take advantage of
its better fuel economy. But I do not want to do that at the expense of
the kayaks flying off the roof when the existing roof rack gets torn from
the roof! :-)


We bought these things called Mighty Mounts made by Yakima from REI to
install a tray type bike rack on the roof of our '93 Previa. The Mighty
Mounts wrap around the cross bars of the factory rack and the bike tray
mounts to the Mighty Mounts. I don't know if you can mount the Kayak rack
on the Mighty Mounts or not, and Yakima probably doesn't recommend them
because the kayaks may weigh more than the capacity of the rack. If they are
the short river kayaks you probably wouldn't have a problem but the longer
narrow kayaks may be a problem. The factory rack is mounted to the roof
with nut-serts, which are basically threaded rivets. The biggest problem is
lift so if you tie the kayaks down to the front and rear and don't drive
very fast, you may be able to get around the lift problem.

We mounted a clamshell roof-top carrier box on the roof rack of the Previa
for a camping trip, and our highway mileage dropped from 23 or 24 down to 14
mpg. 2 kayaks on the roof will probably give similar results. We have
since gotten one of the long aerodynamic carriers from Yakima and it makes
little difference in fuel mileage on our Sequoia.

Good luck!
--
Ray O
correct the return address punctuation to reply