Pulled off roof rails.... Looks hot!

[666vibe]

I started to pull off my roof rails to paint them black, and once I had them off, I thought the car really looked hot. So I am going to leave them off and get some caps. IMO it looks better w/o those rails. My question is... two of those plastic cheapo clips broke off and fell inside the body. Where did they go and can I get them out? Won't they rattle or vibrate? maybe I will get lucky.Ski

[Merzbow]

Well since you live in Michigan I was actually thinking about takin my racks off until I get the caps. I was worried about the screw holes rusting or something....would this be a problem?!?!? Maybe someone could answer this for me. Since my end caps blew off in the wind aronud January and it was exposed to the snow, ice, and rain they have not altered in appearance so I wanted to get the whole assembly off.Would removing hte whole assembly run the risk of rusting out the screw holes if it were to rain?

[03VibeGT6Spd]

Fill the hole with silicone.

[Lancer]

I wonder why they don't come withOUT the racks as an option. It can't be that hard to make caps.

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[Lancer]

Another view:

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[666vibe]

Until I receive my caps, I just have the holes covered with duct tape. A little rain won't hurt it. But... you definitely don't want to leave those holes open.Looks good Lancer. I thought about the spoiler, but I wanna keep it off to max out the mpg.

[damronjr]

Looks awesome Lancer! I think those are the 1st pics you've posted of your Vibe without the rails!

[Merzbow]

Hey what kind of silicon should I use to temporarily fill the holes?

[Pablo1669]

Quote, originally posted by Merzbow »Hey what kind of silicon should I use to temporarily fill the holes?you can use any silicone caulking from like home depot, you'll find it in their paint section, under caulk/adhesives/foamI tried to post a link, but home depot's website just kept sending it to the homepageEDIT: Here is an item number for reference... Internet/Catalog # 107702

[Merzbow]

Thanks! I'll get some today after school.

[03VibeGT6Spd]

I wouldn't use chauking, unless it say's 100% silicon

[tecton]

how do you remove the caps again?

[Merzbow]

Well, I went to Lowe's and bought some clear silicon stuff. I took off my roof racks as well. Once i broke the left one off I learned that you have to slide them towards the hatch instead of pull up. I took apart the head lining in the car to see if they were held on by bolts instead of clips but they weren't. There are three clips and 4 screws on each rail. I took teh screws off and pulled up as hard as I could on the rails...alll three clicks broke off the rail lol. no biggy though I'm not planning on putting them back on, and I still have hte four screws. I slid hte second one as I described above and it came off like butter. I used the clear silicon stuff to fill in the screw holes and other random holes unti lI get the filler caps. The weather stripping above the front windows was flapping around so I rolled up some tape to hold it down and prevent it from blowing away.Overall, without hte roof racks the Vibe looks F'IN BEAUTIFUL!!!!!!! Can't wait to get the filler caps! I was actually considering making my own caps from fiberglass.

[Lancer]

Quote, originally posted by damronjr »Looks awesome Lancer! I think those are the 1st pics you've posted of your Vibe without the rails! No, I posted when I first got them in Feb. http://forums.genvibe.com/zerothread?id=14801 But the Vibe had the stock 'winter' wheels on. I like how it is now!

[damronjr]

Quote, originally posted by Lancer »No, I posted when I first got them in Feb. http://forums.genvibe.com/zerothread?id=14801 But the Vibe had the stock 'winter' wheels on. I like how it is now!Oh, that's right! Forgetful sometimes!

[tecton]

so you have to remove the headliner to get to the screws to pull the rails off?

[Pablo1669]

no, he removed the headliner to check to make sure they weren't bolted on from underneath, which they aren't.

[Merzbow]

It looks like a whole new car. The silicon dried overnight so Iused a box blade and cut hte mounds of it down so its not as noticable.

[kharman]

did you notice a power gain when you put in the unichip?

[Lancer]

Hell yeah I did! Better then when I installed the CAI. And the auto tranny shifted much quicker and smoother. They mapped the timing to run higher octain gas better, too.Easy install, great performance gains, I have had no problems with it. It does help to unplug the battery every once in a while the the car's ECU start from scratch again. Sorta like reformatting your hard drive. I noticed this a while ago and did it again when I installed my new Optima battery.

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