Roof rail replacement?

[Marcus Aurelius]

I believe Monmix replaced his roof rails. I seem to remember him mentioning it in one of his threads that you can use a certain sized drill bit to remove them.

The ones on my truck are cracked and have accumulated a wax build up and grime around them. I would like to replace them and clean aroung them while their off.

Can I remove them and install replacement roof rails relatively easily? Thanks

-Marc

 

[Joe Dirt]

They're an absolute pain in the tail especially up north. Ford used those stupid phillips screws to hold them on most of the vehicles, and most are nearly impossible to remove or even break loose before you strip the screw out. I was looking for the drill-out thread also...

The torx heads on a lot of Windstars are better, but you have to get the ones off the Ex too, and the Windstar uses the Mounty roof rack with different mounting points than the Ex...

 

[Marcus Aurelius]

I've already removed those rails multiple times. I do need to replace a couple of the screws that a stripped.

I'm actually talking about the 5 roof rails that protect the roof from damage when you put something on it that are in between the the two rails that the cross bars mount to. I believe they are riveted in, but they also look like a bolt with a square head.

-Marc