Hey all,

First time poster, long time Nissan nut. In addition to the '05 XTerra I just added to my collection, I also have an '03 Sentra, a '95 Pathfinder, and a '69 Nissan Patrol. Oh, and a '66 Mustang, but that's another forum.

Anyway, hope the title isn't too misleading -- this isn't the 'official' Yakima / Nissan interior bike rack, but it is 99% real Yakima parts. I just purchased my '05 X last weekend (after like 5 years of wanting one) and, being impatient, couldn't wait for the official rack to come out. With my luck, the Nissan-branded one will now probably arrive any moment, so perhaps this expensive experiment will just hasten the official one for the rest of you.











I figured that Yakima made just about everything necessary I would need to cobble together a rack and mount it to the UtiliTrack, so I went to REI and spent about half an hour opening boxes and looking at stuff. This setup basically consists of some standard rail-mount risers, a standard Yakima crossbar, and the Yakima "Boa" fork-type mounts. You have to buy the front and back Boa pieces together, even though you only need the front. The risers are mounted using the plates that go with the XTerra D-Ring thingys -- the Yakima screws fit the plates just fine.

The Boa fork mounts are angled funny in these pictures because rotating the mounts backward on the bar lowers the clamp piece, which gives me just enough room to keep the bike's handlebars from hitting the roof.

All in all, it's a pretty expensive setup, north of $200 for all the parts. If I had it to do it over again, I would just buy the Boa mounts and mount the top half of them to a plank, which would itself be anchored to the UtiliTrack with some easy-to-remove knobs going through the plank into the Nissan D-ring plates. Make sense? It's more or less what others have done here, and would be extremely low-profile. I just had to go and get all fancy.

zieroh

Awesome looking rack!!

I just got my X this week, partly for the purpose of being able haul my bike around, on the inside instead of out. And also I could get to some of our out of the way locations.

I may have to look real hard at duping your setup.

If your bike is any more than medium sized, or if your handlebars are up very high, it's not going to fit with this setup. Before you go investing any money, measure the distance from the bottom of your front fork to the top of your handlebars, and compare with the height of your X's cargo area. Unless you've got a couple inches to spare, this setup is going to put the bike up too high to fit.

I happen to ride a medium-ish bike, and it fits. SWMBO's bike has the handlebars up a bit higher, and it's a really tight fit.

zieroh

Great ingenuity.

Can a road bike fit inside an '05 with a mount like this?

I'd love to put my Litespeed inside on a mount rather than just lay in on its side...or mount it on a rack outside.

Okay, here's the critical measurements for anyone considering this setup:

- With the fork clamps rotated around the bar so as to get them as low as possible, the clamps are still 2.5" off the floor of the cargo area.
- The distance from the fork clamp to the top lip of the rear cargo area opening is about 33". This distance is negotiable if you can tilt your bike while putting it into the truck; more difficult if you have two bikes.
- The distance from the fork clamp to the highest point below the roof is about 34". This distance is only 33" on the driver's side, owing to the roof-mounted shoulder harness assembly.

As I said, if the distance from the bottom of your fork to the top of your handlebars is any more than about 33-34", it'll be impossible to get your bike into the truck using this setup. Dropping the Boa mounts down closer to the floor of the cargo mounts (hypothetically mounted on a clamp or something) might get you another inch of clearance.

zieroh

Not sure -- I've got a medium-framed K2 mountain bike (Zed 4.0, if anyone cares) and it's really a tight fit. Check the fork-to-handlebar measurement.

zieroh

I just measured my 21" MTB (Giant Rainier), from the fork to the top of the handle bars a mere 30". So I should have no problem making your setup work.

For now, I may opt for mounting fork holders to a 2x4, until either I the find the rack or Nissan releases their version.

If anybody needs the rail rider towers used in this system, I have got a set left over from my Jeep. The set is actually four towers, so for this application I have two set ups. They have been sitting in my closet for a long time (Read as "these are worth very little to me"). Hit me up. B.

FWIW...A lot of bigger bike shops usually have a bin of "extra" parts for racks, typically because mechanics in general are pack rats and don't throw stuff out because they might need it some day. I know at my old shop (and my friends) they always have a ton of loose stuff that you can rummage through to find bits and pieces you need.

Also, the bikes may fit better if you position the mounts so that the handlebars aren't end-to-end, but on an angle and parallel to each other.

Like \ and \ instead of ___ and ___

Hope this helps.

My suggestion would be to use a 1x6 or 1x8. If you use anything narrow, it will tend to "roll" in my experience and the bike will collapse.