The best tie down location on my old Saturn SL was under the steel frame under the front edge of the hood in the center. I use vinyl coated 1/8" stainless steel lifeline (which is much thinner than regular line or rope) and easily ran it through the gap between the front edge of the hood and the rear edge of the front bumper. I threaded it under the steel frame member around the hood latch and back up the other side of the center frame (so that the lifeline entry points were about 1 foot apart, centered on the front of the hood. Putting this on the vehicle takes less than 5 minutes, having to open the hood, thread, then close the hood. I did something similar on the rear edge of the hood on my old (plastic bodied) Pontiac Transport van. I suggest that the line run forward somewhat from the kayaks down to the vehicle anchor point so that it would not let the boats slide backward if the rack detached. The other big advantage is that the stainless cable is much stronger than rope and doesn't stretch. I bought a hand swaging tool to make loops at the ends and keep a number of lengths to fit different boats. Al Vazquez KayakGuide.com - Places to Paddle - *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Fri May 23 2003 - 11:39:04 PDT
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