On my '91 4Runner I had made a
home brewed shovel mount using the Yakima Snap Arounds, some long bolts, and some Yakima plastic wingnuts.
The shovel I had bought at Lowes hardware.
Since Yakima has the 10V Mighty Mounts that let me mount the Slee Hi-Lift mounts, I knew Yakima would have the equivalent of a mount that would let the bolt go vertically, but the mount would be horizontal.
With the bolt vertically, this would allow the same shovel I used before to be able to sit on top of the FJ Cruisers rack slats.
I called up Yakima and they were clueless.
The tech people there are trained to only tell you what fits your rack that they have in their rack guides.
The guy I spoke with said I had to use Yakima Universal Mighty Mounts, as that is all that fits.
I told him I beg to differ, but your 10V mounts fit perfectly, as that is what Slee turned me onto when I contacted him.
I told the Yakima guy I wanted a horizontal mount that had the same shape as the 10V.
He said he did not know, but I finally got it out of him that the 23H should fit.
Now was that so hard to tell me?
I ordered up a
set from RackOutfitters.com and sure enough, they fit perfectly.
However my old bolts I had used on the 4Runner were a little bent, so I had to buy new ones.
The size you want is 5/16-18-4
Also since I took off two of my racks slats when installing the Hi-Lift mounts, the two slats left were to far apart to make the shovel work with its two holes that are drilled in it.
I had to add back a slat and move it in front of the most forward slat, and that worked out perfectly.
Here is a shot of just the 23H mounts on.
Here is a shot with the new bolts.
The other plastic Yakima wingnuts I had used were to small for the new bolts and the 5/16th nut that Yakima has you insert into the 23H.
Luckily I had some old 5/16th Yakima wingnuts laying around from some old Yakima thing I bought years ago.
You can also use a standard metal wingnut, but the advantage of using the Yakima ones are they are much bigger to grab onto.
And finally a few shots with the shovel in place.
One nice thing too about mounting it more forward like this is I can step up on the sliderz to get up and take the shovel off.
It turned out pretty good, and I have two of the 23H Mighty Mounts leftover that I can use for another project up on the rack.
Maybe the kitchen sink I can mount to them.
While I was up there working on the roof, I tried to finally mount my 48" Hi-Lift on the Slee mounts.
It is not going to happen.
Jack is to heavy, and I can not get close enough on the ladder to heft it up there.
Chalk it up to getting old.
I am still working with a friend on making a Hi-Lift mount for the spare tire, or I may end up getting the Demello Hi-Lift mounts for the side of the rack in the future.
Not as hard to put the rack on the side as it is trying to put it all the way up on top.
I do not see why everyone is in such a hurry to ditch the factory FJ Cruiser rack.
I like it a lot, and with a little creativeness, you can do a lot with it by fabbing up your own stuff like I did the shovel mount here.
With the two leftover 23H mounts and buying another box of four mounts (would use four mounts), I could fab up a nice jerry can mount adding back the fourth slat.
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