8020 Roof Rack on a Promaster 2500 Van

[@michaelgregory7704]

Hi guys, and thank you for sharing your van build journey. It is fun to watch how you overcome the many challenges that seem to arise with your build. Cheers !!

[@marctania2349]

Thanks, Michael. Sometimes I feel like we are the only ones that have these problems. But it’s fun working together to overcome them. Thanks so much for watching :-)

[@markkimmerling4251]

Thank God for Italian fathers ! Thanks for sharing your journey. I wanna use anaka but I wanna do half the work. Will do both if I can. I appreciate your good spirits . Thank you.

[@marctania2349]

Thank you for watching it, Mark. If we can be of any help for you on your build, please let us know :-)

[@LilPitPirdelli]

Thank you!

[@marctania2349]

You are very welcome, and thank you for watching

[@jaminthevanuk296]

Use a wire coat hanger to pull the bracket forward then thread the bolt In

[@marctania2349]

Oh yeah....that is a great idea!!

[@mrbranchatl]

Great work on the roof rack.

[@marctania2349]

Thanks , Steven :)

[@grayandgrumpy]

OMG what a great episode! Everything does take much longer than expected. Lesson learned: when we get our van we will measure the distance between the posts. Why is Tania the one always doing the work on the roof? I've been going back and forth over buying all the components separately to save a few hundred $ but the tech support you got is probably worth that expense.

[@marctania2349]

So glad you like the video. We tried buying individual parts but it was hard finding a distributor that had experience with van builds. So it left a lot of questions for us. We are fortunate to have Unaka so close. :)

[@trishwhitehouse6536]

Once again you pull through. I just received my Unaka roof rack a few days ago- i had no idea you guys had one too. So I'll be watching this closely to see how to install it.- the online directions seem a little daunting. (PS, I deleted your email and it's gone forever, if you have a second and can send it again, I'd love to show you my upper cabinets).

[@marctania2349]

Hey Trish, Hit me up at [e-mail]. The Unaka guys were really helpful to us....We ceratinly have had some discoloration on some of the bracket parts....but its holding up rock solid. It didn't quite fit as easily as we had hoped....but take it slow, keep track of all the little parts....use Loctite...and you'll be fine. Looking forward to seeing your cabinets...we just finished one yesterday but we dont have the van today so we'll have to wait to paint and install

[@trishwhitehouse6536]

@@marctania2349 I just spent a day trying to get my drawers to line up on there tracks. No success. This is one of those days I want to give up!

[@marctania2349]

@@trishwhitehouse6536 Failure is not an option :-) There’s times I just want to torch the van and collect the insurance money and be done with it. But then I have to remember. We each have our own journey in doing this. Being 25 years old with no job, no mortgage, and no responsibilities would probably make this easier, but that wouldn’t be very fun. You will finish it, it will be amazing. And what memories you will have making it.

[@trishwhitehouse6536]

@@marctania2349 Ah, but I can’t torch the van and collect anything because insurance won’t cover the build. Only the vehicle itself. Because “it’s not built out by a professional”! 😩 This is a great lesson in being patient. It will be great when it’s done, and I need to be patient with the process. I’ve learned so much! Thanks for the much needed pep talk.

[@craigsmithx]

After 4 hrs of googles I went with Unaka mounts too.

[@SoCalKevin]

Great job guys! The rack looks great! I really like the layout👍

[@marctania2349]

Thanks, Kevin....The roof deck is up now...along with the wind fairing. Look forward to you seeing it.

[@gonewiththekale]

I just bought an Unaka roof rack thanks to your recommendation, very exciting for it to arrive. They (Brad) was very lovely on the phone and I told him I only bought it because of your youtube channel :))

[@marctania2349]

That is so awesome. They are wonderful guys to work with

[@gonewiththekale]

They are wonderful guys, yes, but I wouldn’t recommend this roof rack to anyone. It’s badly engineered- so frustrating to put together, scratches easily, and honestly, for the price, I expected much more. If those screws were just a bit longer it would have been less aggravating. I wish I never bought it. Anyway, I’m still addicted to you and Tania’s videos as I SLOWLY build out my Promaster. 😊

[@seattleboatguy]

A really great video. I'm just finishing up my Unaka 8020 install on my Promaster. I ran into some challenges along the way, but nothing insurmountable. Your rack looks super. Great job.

[@marctania2349]

Thanks very much. We have been super happy with ours.. And glad you were able to work it all out.

[@ahagan1930]

Apologies, you guys did a great job and my fat fingers accidentally hit the thumbs down and I can't undo it. But you most got a thumbs up 👍 from me!

[@marctania2349]

Hey, no problem at all. And thank you for letting us know. Thanks for watching :)

[@FlyingCameraGuy]

I know your pain. We converted a 136" Promaster and it seemed like we did everything 3 or 4 times. Good luck and hang in there it will be worth it.

[@marctania2349]

Thanks, Bob

[@GreeneGene33]

Awesome content, Good job and good attitudes! Love it, thanks for the share.

[@doityourselfvan]

Our angle rail system is much lighter and more efficient. All the best, Hein at DIYvan

[@BarryandKaren]

I'm puzzled why you didn't just add a couple of washers to the brackets between the 8020 and the brackets to make up the space? Seems like it would be the easiest way to eliminate the variance in the width of the roof lugs.

[@marctania2349]

Oh, yeah....That would have worked actually.

[@fredflintstonedfw]

Dont get me wrong. I love the way your solar panels look. Very nice and low profile ( beautiful ) hard to see from the ground. 👍👍👍 Here comes the BUT. Is there enough air space underneath them?? Because there is supposed to be a certain amount of air space or air flow underneath the panels to work 100% proper.

[@marctania2349]

You are spot on and 100% correct. Right now, we have about a 1.5" to 2" gap. I have seen different recommendations to how big that space should be. The nice thing about the flush mount adapters is that we can alway flip them upside down and have the panels sit above the 8020, which gets us another 1.5". To be honest, one thing I have learned through this build is that everything is a trade off. We are about to install a wind fairing on the front. Some say it really helps with gas mileage. Some say it doesn't, Some say it prevents airflow under the solar panel, which is bad. Some say it reduces noise, which is good....The truth is we have never used one and we just like the way it looks. If we find more negatives than positives, we'll remove it. Our biggest concern right now is vehicle weight...and making sure we anchor everything correctly in case of a front side impact. For the rest of the considerations, and all are totally valid, we just go with what we feel is best....and have a plan in case it needs to be changed. Thanks so much for these comments. They are really helpful to us :)

[@fredflintstonedfw]

@@marctania2349 l truly do like that low profile look with the panels sitting like that. Hopefully you have enough or more than enough space under there. Out of all the ones I have seen and there has been a lot I like yours by far. as far as the Air Jam those. I have only dealt with them on big trucks that Drive cross country. I have not seen any on these Vans like you got. I have seen them on pickups that are pulling the big trailers but never on them vans like yours. I guess we will all find out together if it works. hopefully it works for the best and looks as cool as your solar panel rack. The best of luck with it. And get/let Tania do more airplane modeling of the stuff behind you when you're talkin to to us

[@CubbyVanLife]

Hey guys, excellent video. You mentioned that one or two of the crossbars were sagging and I’m wondering if you put decking across there is the 8020 strong enough to stand on or support the weight of storage bins?

[@marctania2349]

Hey Guys, Thanks for watching. There were 2 loose corners in our design that were sagging a bit. We ended up propping something.....and I can't recall what it was (I think a short scrap piece of 8020)....under the sagging part. Luckily, the sag was directly over a framing member in the van structure, so we didn't have to worry about it messing with the roof. I think the specs for deflection on the 8020 website are not very accurate....or they are done under very specific conditions to get the marketing numbers they want. The deflections tests I did showed much more deflection that the company states. But, regardless, our deck is certainly strong enough to stand on or put storage bins on. And Unaka was very easy to work with if you go that route. :) Hope that helps.

[@CubbyVanLife]

@@marctania2349 that was a very detailed and awesome reply, thanks so much!

[@marctania2349]

@@CubbyVanLife of course. Glad to help :)

[@davidthompson9359]

Nice walk through instructional. How would you approach a similar setup only attach/detach for a hybrid car? I've been looking at (DIY Solar) project videos and a few mobile ones, but these are all RV and van permanent installs. I get about 90 mpg with a full charge on my hybrid so I can get to work. What I would like to do is break out a collapsible kit, mount it on the roof of my hybrid for charging and remove it before the drive home. First big issue is how do you protect it. It would need a strap in system that can't be easily cut.

[@sylviasmall7059]

Hi guys, thanks for your video. I have a sprinter van and I'm the second owner. I'd like to do some upgrades at some point in time so this is very helpful. I noticed that you picked up the supplies from SC and I'm wondering where you might be located.

[@marctania2349]

Hi Sylvia. Sorry for the delayed response. We are located in Cumming, GA. Just about 40 minutes north of Atlanta.

[@robertserra9790]

Great video. Which solar panels are you using? They fit so well in the space.

[@marctania2349]

Hi Robert, from our research, it seems like there are only two 200w solar panels that can fit east-west on top of the Promaster 2500 like this. One is by Rich, the other by Newpowa. These are the Newpowa models. Not only do they fit in this configuration, but they’re made up of nine individual electrical buses. So there are more ways to get around a failed section of the panel. I’m not sure of the exact model number of these, but they are the ones listed on the Unaka website. They are pretty new on the market, and we are excited to use them. We will talk more about them in the upcoming video where we wire them up. Thanks so much for watching :-)

[@SKATEJUICE]

Love your videos. Just wondering if you're able to utilize your roof rack with tie down straps or is this style of roof rack not meant for that type of thing? Also was this roof rack custom made to fit around your AC & Fan configurations? Or did you place your fan & AC based on the layout of the roof rack? I'm currently converting a Promaster 136 wb high top. Thanks!

[@marctania2349]

Hi and Thanks so much. I know Unaka Gear, as I'm sure many others, sell tie down kits for 8020. I will stick the link in a comment below. The roof rack was design around the fan and AC unit, which we already had in place. But it was pretty easy. 8020 is like a big erector set so we were able to put crossbeams where we needed them. We actually designed the whole thing on Smartdraw. Then the Unaka engineers took our drawing and refined the measurements. Tania is holding our design at the beginning of this video.

[@marctania2349]

unakagearco.com/products/8020-tie-down-kit-stainless-steel-15-series#:~:text=The%20Tie%20Down%20Ring%20gives,your%208020%20style%20aluminum%20extrusion.

[@pocketchange1951]

👍👌❤🇨🇦sweet

[@marctania2349]

Thanks so much for watching

[@igoslomo]

Loving all the videos.. just disappointed I’m all caught up! That’s okay. I just keep going back and rewatching them😃. You know what I like the most? You don’t make it look easy - you share the struggle. I really appreciate that. Quick question. Did you get the Ram Promaster KIT from Unaka? Or did you buy the 80/20 and brackets from them and figure it out yourself?

[@marctania2349]

Hi LeAnn, I designed it myself and then sent it to them for validation. They were a great help. I ended up buying everything from them....I think the PM kit plus some extra parts. Those guys are awesome to work with.

[@igoslomo]

@@marctania2349 I’m currently working with them but I’m not designing a thing! I’m also getting the Fiamma awning. I’m so excited!

[@ron-almog]

Thanks for watching our commercial. we know its way overpriced, but hey, look at our shirts, we have sponsors to support. if you really want to cheap DIY solution, here it is: kzbin.info/www/bejne/mpqsi5hjqcqsqbc

[@edm7356]

What a A**!

[@SuckItYouTube19]

Unaka gear website has got to be the WORSE I have ever seen.

[@marctania2349]

They are great in person....but we live 4 hours away so its easy to get there.

[@gwb8445]

Very nice video and very nice roof rack but OMG the cost! Way way more than I can afford. 🫤

[@marctania2349]

It was certainly a budget buster.....