Lock bolts for roof rack cross bars

[dantheman66]

I picked up a set of used cross bars for my Vibe's roof rack, but they did not come with the hardware to lock them in place. The bolts are an easy find, but what exactly do they screw in to? I assume there's some kind of nut used on the inside, just wondering if anyone with experience in this department could enlighten me. Thanks.

[joatmon]

Weelcome to genvibeWhat year?If it's an early year, there are rectangular nut plates that slide inside the rails. They are the same thread size as the rectangular nut plates used for the cargo area tie down anchors, but the ones for the cargo area a a little bit too wide to fit inside the rails Once I bought a set or cross bars from a junkyard for someone else's Vibe, and the yard lost two of the backing plates, so I took two of the cargo area plates and ground them down a little so they'd fit in the rack rails.

[dantheman66]

Well I've got 6 of those. They seem to slide in the rail just fine, so I assume you mean they're too fat to fit between the rail and the cross piece, correct?

[joatmon]

To fit in the cross bars and rails, the plates from the cargo area need to be made more rectangular, less square.I found a couple of pictures of them in other threads, none detailed enough to manufacture from, but will give you an idea of what the original ones are supposed to look like and where they gofrom http://forums.genvibe.com/zerothread?id=11484from http://forums.genvibe.com/zerothread?id=44305That's if you want to come up with something like what was originally used. If you don't have the plates or the bolts, it might be good to just hit some decent hardware store and see what they have that you can make work

[dantheman66]

Oh ok it makes sense to me now. I'll have to make an ace run when they come in, pretty sure I'll find a way to make it work. Thanks for the help.