loginfailed's 2001 E46 Touring

Wow, excellent DIY job. You've probably done more in the last few months than most of us do in a whole year.

I love your mini car collection too.

So I have plenty of Yakima roof rack stuff around, but I'm not very tall so I'm not a fan of mounting my bike to the roof.

I'd hate to accidentally drop the bike or something and damage the car's paint.

I'm also not much of a fan of the wind noise that roof racks generate.

So I bought a reciever hitch a while back with plans to make my own bike rack.

I bought some 14 guage 1.25" square tubing, a wire feed welder, a metal saw, a grinder (to smooth out my ugly welds heh), some primer, black paint and some clear coat.

I've been slowly messing around with it and today it's finally complete.

I took a Yakima King Cobra made for roof racks and bolted it to the hitch platform I made.

Only thing left is some nice end caps to plug the holes at the ends of the tubes.











With all the money I spent on tools & supplies, I could have bought 3 really nice Yakima hitch racks already made, lol.

But the tools, which account for a majority of the money I spent; are things I've always wanted to buy and I can get a lot of use from in future projects.

Plus, I wanted something extremely simple, to carry only a single bike. This rack is purely for use with the E46 when I'm heading to the trails by myself to meet some friends.

When I need to carry more bikes, I have a 4 bike carrier for our Honda Pilot. I also have a 2 bike "hang and dangle" style to use with the E46 if I need to carry a buddy along.

Originally Posted by alpine003

Wow, excellent DIY job. You've probably done more in the last few months than most of us do in a whole year.

I love your mini car collection too.

Thanks! I do what I can. Hopefully I can do more in the near future.

The Hotwheel collection needs more attention too. I'd like to do my entire garage but I may just stop at one wall. It makes for some expensive wall paper.

Looking good. I have no problems putting stuff on my rack. The roof is already dented from the PO. Plus I'm short at 5'7".

Do you still have the cross bars that were mounted to your roof rails? Are they for sale?

I do still have them. Yakima roof rack parts are always good to keep around so I have no plans to sell them.

In the past, I've been quick to sell off spare parts from my cars, but I've learned over the years that I usually end up kicking myself for doing it. So I've started to save certain things that could be useful later on.

Nice Work, .

Where do you find your camera ? I bouht 2 on Ebay but the do not fit nice.

I had to modify the camera to fit. I just took it apart and glued it into place. Then I used Permatex Ultra Black sealant to seal everything up.

pics with the bike rack installed pweeeez

nice bike rack

Originally Posted by loginfailed

I had to modify the camera to fit. I just took it apart and glued it into place. Then I used Permatex Ultra Black sealant to seal everything up.

Thanks, I will still looking to find some that at least do not need to much modification to fit well.