[Idaho Jake]

Honda Fit Roof Rack Installation Instructions

I recently bought a new ’08 Honda Fit. The installation instructions below are spacific to the '08 model, the '09 Fit is a bit longer. My lifestyle requires the option of a roof rack, which Honda does not offer. I am a very particular retired furniture maker, but not a professional roof rack installer. The following instructions come with no guaranty of any type & any user of these instructions agrees to holds the author harmless.


Performance Criteria: A roof rack with maximum adjustable spread between the bars (front to back), able to carry long loads parallel to the ground (nose not elevated to catch wind), able to accept variety of accessories, 100 lb capacity, look like original equipment, high quality.

Choices: RackOutfitters.com recommended Yakima because of their track system & accessories. I chose & recomend the 54” track. Yakima has no specific instructions for installing any of their roof racks on Fit’s. An option is to have a dealer/installer do the installation for you.

Installation Qualifications: This is a job for a skilled individual. I do not go into elaborate detail. If you do not understand why I suggest something, you probably shouldn’t be working on the roof of your nice new car.

Pictures: I took pix, but may not get them included in this first posting; the process looks complicated. I’m a craftsman, not a computer nut.

Warning: Take my “Warnings” seriously.

The Meat: Positioning of the 54” tracks is 99% of this project. The idea is to securely & cleanly attach the tracks to the sheet metal roof (they can’t be attached to the rounded body member between the doors & the black plastic insert strip). Using the track fasteners (PlusNuts), you have to; avoid drilling into ribs & other stuff between the roof & the headliner, get the tracks positioned parallel & the ends square with each other. The basic measurement is the back of the tracks should be 13 ½” from the back edge of the roof, where the roof meets the hatchback door (I wanted it further back, but to do so made the front of a long load too high). Next, the back outside corner of the tracks should be 2 ¼” toward the midline of the roof from the center of the black plastic insert strip along the outside edge of the roof. (I wanted a wider stance of the Control Towers, but after carefully pulling part of the back edge of the headliner down to look in there, stuff was in the way.)

The trickiest thing for most people will be to bend; yes I said bend the tracks to fit the curve of the roof. (this will not impede the sliding of the Landing Pad nuts, however, when tightened into position, the front plastic Landing Pads are bent enough so that, when the Towers & Rods are not mounted, the Landing Pad covers don’t fit right, so I leave them off). The roof has a compound curve. I custom bend curves in metal in segments. Pad your fulcrum to save scratches. Warning; where holes are drilled in the track, it bends more easily than the rest, so avoid engaging the fulcrum at the holes while bending. I spent about a ½ hr apiece getting a nice smooth curve bent into the tracks to conform to the roof. I got mine to have a gap of no more than 1/8” from the roof sheet metal.

At this point, I put together the whole Landing Pad/Control Tower/Bar assembly to “dry fit” them onto the tracks. If you trust me & yourself, you will not need to do the dry fit. The dry fit tells you that the front outside corner of the tracks should be 5 5/8” from the center of the black insert strip. The inside of track slot to inside of track slot should measure 30 3/8”.

Once you are comfortable with the fit & location of the tracks to the roof, it’s time to start drilling holes in your nice new car! Warning: there are only 14 PlusNuts included in the kit…don’t drill more than 7 holes per track. It is mandatory that you refer to the Yakima instructions at this point. Designating hole #1 as the rear-most hole in the track, the holes to be used for PlusNuts are: 1, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10. This placement of holes insures avoiding drilling into any ribs or other stuff.

My biggest concern was not weight down on the roof, but wind-pull up on the front. With Control Towers at max spread (front to back), a simulated long load using a 10’ long 1x4 (with the car otherwise empty) had a “rake” down in the front of 3” lower than the back of the 1x4. In other words, if the car is loaded, the roof load will come out aproximately parallel to the ground.

Back to drilling: Follow Yakima instructions on drilling, i.e.,center punching, etc. Drilling in sheet metal, as you better know, is tricky. To keep from drilling thru the head liner, a professional installer advised me to use a deep socket as a depth gauge for about ¼”. It’s a little rough on the soon to be covered up paint, but take your choice. I used 3 drill/socket combos to graduate up to my final hole size. My PlusNuts wouldn’t fit into the 9/32” hole that Yakima specified, so I snuck up to 5/16”, which worked fine.

Installing PlusNuts: Warning: do not start installing/tightening a PlusNut until you have it fully seated down on the rubber washer/shoulder of the PlusNut. This applies to all the PlusNuts, but, in particular for hole #8, you have to push down fairly hard on the PlusNut installation assembly, temporarily pushing down on the headliner, as you start tightening. Some holes take a little finesse to get the PlusNuts inserted.

Yakima instructions will take you from here…& Good Luck!! Mine came out BEAUTIFULLY!!

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