Another set of cushioned Thule Load Stops

[Guest]

I had lent a pair of Thule Load Stops to a friend to transport a canoe, and they liked them so much they kept them and ordered replacements for me and another pair from themselves. Thule makes (or made) Load Stops for their rectangular bars (Thule calls them “square” bars, they are not square). These things:

https://www.amazon.com/Thule-503000-...gateway&sr=8-2

P9180013 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

Rock solid, I’ve never had a Load Stop move a centimeter on the crossbars, and they are simple easy to put on, slide adjust, tighten and take off. I don’t know if the Load Stops are now discontinued discounted, but that is a good price for sturdy, customizable stops, especially when compared to the price for Thule’s current gunwale brackets.

https://www.amazon.com/Thule-819-Por...s%2C163&sr=8-3

$130 for gunwale brackets? Yoikes, that stuff got stupid pricey. I actually like the Load Stops better. On a decked canoe or a canoe with shouldered tumblehome the vertical gunwale brackets were often touching only the shoulder of the hull, and not pressed against the outwale or coming. Not what I want in fierce crosswinds, especially with a composite hull.

Yeah, yeah, I know, I can put them inside the hull, but that inside position is a PITA to reach and position and tighten, and worse when sliding heavy canoes on from the rear crossbar, when the inside stops on the bow crossbar are sticking up hitting every thwart along the sliding way.

The /| shape of the Load Stops provides two possible hull fit angles, vertical for slab sided canoes, or angled out to accommodate tumblehome, so the base of the stop is tucked in against the outwale or coming.

Some easy customization is needed. Load stops are all metal, which I do like for no-plastic catastrophic failure prevention, but not for chafing against the boat. They just need some simple DIY padding to protect the hull.

Four each 9 ¼” long by 1” strips of scrap minicel exercise flooring will do the trick. When measuring for foam fit around a sharp corner cut a test piece an inch long and see how it seats. I, uh, didn’t do so with the first test length piece (for the umpteenth tiime, I know better) and the minicel needed to be ¾” of an inch longer than my initially measured flush 8 ½” to wrap around the top and back.

Gawd bless a test fit, and lots of saved scrap exercise flooring.

P9180016 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

Before any contact cement application I need to assure that the metal surface of the Load Stops is free of grease, oil or contaminates. They actually feel a little (lubricant?) slippery. Gawd bless the shop spray bottle of alcohol.

P9180018 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

And, again, in my sink-less shop, gawd bless the spray bottles of Dawn soapy water and plain water. I have yet to find a sprayer pump that will withstand constant vinegar immersion; the flea spray bottle is the only pump that has stood up to alcohol.

P9180021 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

With the load stops alcohol wiped clean it was finally contact cement time. The usual; three timed coats on the minicel, the first and second coats porously sucked in and vanished, two coats on the metal load stop surfaces, wait ‘til both surfaces are barely tacky, heat gun, press and pray the instant-stuck alignment is correct. It mostly was.

Clamped down tight. I moved the clamps from side to side as the contact cement cured, so both surfaces were equally compressed

P9180023 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

P9180024 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

Done right (3 coats on the minicel, two on the hard surface, heat gun, press & alignment pray) contact cement provides an amazingly tenacious hold on minicel. But for surety sake a perimeter bead of E-6000 adhesive sealant will help prevent 70 mph highway rain, dust and road grime/salt from infiltrating under the minicel edge.

P9180028 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

Those Load Stops are 3 ½” tall, so they work equally well with ladders or lumber, like a wachamacallit. . . .ummm, yeah, a “load stop”.


EDIT: Not discontinued. Thule still lists Load Stops at $75 for a 4-pack.

https://www.thule.com/en-us/us/roof-...d-stops-_-1025

If you have “square” Thule bars Load Stops are multi-functional handy with a little adaptation. Boat, ladder, lumber, armoire, etc.

Or the most comically tied down item, a mattress. I guess mattress store employees are not allowed to help or even recommend ties downs for liability reasons. When I see a mattress being cartopped on the highway, “held” with twine and granny knots, no “bowline” so the front half is bent 90 degrees up in the slipstream I want to be either quickly ahead, or way behind with room to dodge.

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

Simply creative and creatively simple, as usual. I'm curious as to whether you would cushion the Thule load bars as well as the load stops. However, the cushioning of car-topping bars and/or gunwales is a rich subject and probably deserves its own thread rather than a hijack of this one.

 

[gumpus]

I've been using a set for about 3 years and am also very happy with them. I use 6 inch sections of 1.25"X1" clear tubing to protect my gunwales and also to add some stiction between the boat and rack. They are not all metal, they are plastic inside of a metal cage and the part that touches the boat is plastic (the construction is easy to see in the pic below). The metal cage helps them clamp to the bar and one awesome design feature is that even if one is loose it will just pivot on the tightening screw and dig into the bar which gives extra security. The tall vertical section also works great for attaching antlers for the holiday season.

 

[Guest]

I'm curious as to whether you would cushion the Thule load bars as well as the load stops. However, the cushioning of car-topping bars and/or gunwales is a rich subject and probably deserves its own thread rather than a hijack of this one.

That is and could be/should be its own thread.

We have two 4-crossbar sets of Quick & Easy’s for the big Ford van. One quad set up to accommodate four canoes gunwales down, another quad to hold four decked boats coming down. The fore and aft crossbars are covered with outdoor carpet, so any inwale mounted flange washers are not gouging out chips of wood while I slide canoes into place, two each from either end.

Those have wood gunwale stops screwed in place, positioned to hold a variety of different hull combinations.

A friend has identical wood Q&E crossbars, built in my shop at the same time, without any carpeting. The constant flange washer grinding while sliding the same canoe on and off has scraped away most of the varnish and chewed a significant divot in the wood.

I have never done any auxiliary padding to our “square” Thule bars, which have some plastic/vinyl coating. Sliding heavy canoes on and off those crossbars over the years has left a helluva ragged mess on those Thule bars.

Our round Yakima bars are plain tubular metal, the black coating is scraped up but not all rubberized raggy.

I’m not a fan of (sacrificial) split foam pipe insulation for a number of reasons, and have never had any wind noise or harmonics from any of our roof racks. Padding the crossbars or wrapping them in rope/etc would make the load stops or gunwale brackets less easy to slide and adjust with different canoes.

 

[clemency]

I have a Yakima rack with round bars. So I use the Yakima version.

https://www.rackwarehouse.com/yakima-8005000-load-stops-canoe-gunwale-brackets.html

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

I've used Thule bars for the past 25 years. Never used gunwale brackets or load stops because I've never found them to be necessary, even with my 22 foot outrigger canoe on my van. I tie off the belly straps to the towers, so there can be virtually no lateral movement of the bow inward or outward. If the bow tries to move inward (toward the middle of the vehicle) the front tower lateral tie will stop it. If the bow tries to move outward, the rear tower lateral tie will stop it.

Before Thule, I used round Yakima bars with a single gunwale bracket on each end to prevent outward lateral movement. Using only one bracket also allowed a variety of width boats to be topped without adjusting bracket spacing.

I've used foam pipe insulation on Thule bars in two ways to protect wooden gunwales. I've put slit insulation along the entire length of the load bars secured at several places with black duct tape. This allows the insulation to rotate as the boats are slid up without destroying the foam too quickly. This worked, but I was too lazy to do it again when the foam finally got torn up.

I've also put sections of pipe insulation on the gunwales, as Gumpus does with clear plastic. This worked but had too many downsides. The insulation sections would sometimes fall off in the process of lifting or adjusting the canoe. Second, rainwater would collect in the foam sections. Finally, the foam would begin to degrade and sort of melt in the summer heat and leave a gummy residue on the gunwales. None of these things is likely to happen with Gumpus's superior idea of plastic sections.

 

[Guest]

I've used Thule bars for the past 25 years. Never used gunwale brackets or load stops because I've never found them to be necessary.

Different strokes. I have used gunwale brackets or load stops on every rack system since the early ‘80s. My first truck had an aluminum cap with square aluminum tubing ladder racks. I fashioned “adjustable” (not easily) DIY stops for those bars, and have used something ever since.

With proper tie downs gunwale stops may be a bit of belt & suspenders, but I’m good with that. We have broken a gunwale stop (not a load stop) in insane crosswinds going across the plains. Beyond the lateral movement insurance I like that I can leave the front crossbar stops in place, and when I slide the canoes on from the rear they each go in the same perfect location, fore and aft and side-to-side, every time.

That becomes even more important when carrying multiple boats on the van, where the boats are racked nestled closely offset, two loaded from the rear and two from the front. Even with four 8’ crossbars it is tight, I want assurance that they are positioned exactly so an inch apart, and not chaffing hull-to-hull for a thousand miles. I messed up with the Monarch on one trip; it was rubbing against the head of a rudder pedal bolt on the adjacent boat and left some really ugly gel coat damage.

I've also put sections of pipe insulation on the gunwales, as Gumpus does with clear plastic. This worked but had too many downsides.

The insulation sections would sometimes fall off in the process of lifting or adjusting the canoe. Second, rainwater would collect in the foam sections. Finally, the foam would begin to degrade and sort of melt in the summer heat and leave a gummy residue on the gunwales. None of these things is likely to happen with Gumpus's superior idea of plastic sections.

Late great friend NT made me a bunch of peculiar gunwale protectors. Instead of tubing he used some tall vinyl trim shaped like /_\. Those were easier to put on than slit tubular version, and sat up higher above the outwale to offer some protection at the edges of the hull.

I only ever used them with our wood gunwaled canoes, and never since going to padded load stops. It is enough of a step ladder* PITA tying boats on a full sized van with the crossbars seven feet in the air.

Because I slide mount canoes on those tall roof racks I needed to attached the gunwale sleeves, or at least reach in and readjust them, after the canoe was slid into place, which was really inconvenient. Standing on the step ladder, getting the sleeves in place and repositiong the hull between the stops, all while balanced two feet in the air on the top step on a ladder.

With a single canoe and a low-ish roofline, not a problem. With 3 or 4 canoes on the van the gunwales on interior canoes were dang near impossible to reach, even with reaching across “I’m getting too old for this” ladder top tippy toe.

*Two step ladders; with four canoes gunwale down on the quad van racks the boats and racks went on in a very specific order, the two inside hulls and ropes first, one from the front, one from the back. Which meant carrying the ladder from side to side and back to the other side and again, and again, and again. With four boats it was a minimum of four trips to each side of the van.

The number of times I walked around to the other side of the van to tie or untie lines without remembering to carry the step ladder with me was intolerable. I carried a second step ladder so I could set one on either side of the van.