Whistling roof rack

[harbourseal]

Hi all,

My roof rack on top of Robinette is making a terrible whistling noise.
I don't think I can stand that amount of noise on a long trip to the south of France.

Does anybody have an idea to stop it.

Taking it of has crossed my mind. Any other ideas are welcome.

 

[Cornish4]

Hi there Robert, I agree, a whistling roof-rack is a pain, and you never really get used to it, and I don't know of a way to stop it, if any. I've considered removing mine, but as it's so period, and in keeping with the retro look of my car, I live with the noise, and its handy for carrying a spare spare wheel on a road trip.I thought you would be taking your F6 down to the South of France on our little adventure.
BTW, anybody else from the forum thinking about going to Le Temp Jadis at Uzes in July?
Regards Brian.

 

[Niels Svane]

Mine just hums, but also a bit annoying in the long run. I pulled it of before going on the Nürburgring last summer, and it has not been on since.

 

[JdeW]

A whistling roof rack hmmm you could turn up the volume of the radio-cassette player, but the phenomenon has everything to do with Helmholtz resonance.
Maybe there's a cavity in the roof rack pipes causing the Helmholtz resonance effect, resonance can be amplified by a disturbance in laminar air flow causing whistling, humming etcetera, by the roof rack clamps.
So search for cavities and or change the clamps or the position of the rack on the roof.
The Helmholtz effect can also be pleasant by drilling various different diameter holes in the roof rack, you might be playing a tune when driving at different speeds

 

[malcolm]

A hum or loud tonal noise can often be fixed by cable tying pipe insulation to the front couple of bars running across the roof. Mine has that above 100km/h.

My roof rack is one of the Renault made ones and doesn't seem to whistle. Taping over small crevices and holes (as above) might well help.

 

[AdamWilkes]

......... otherwise a small wind-deflector of stuff fixed to the front of the rack will fix it, to guide the air over the rails (which will be 'singing'). Cable-ties fixings perhaps to experiment, full-width length of 2" wide metal/plastic/wood across front of rack. Try different angles of attack to the wind.

I hear that Yakima WindJammers, Thule fairings and simple thick rope or bungee cord wrapped around the front bar/all bars in a spiral also work to break up the air flow across the bars.

 

[Cornish4]

Interesting input from you chaps, so I thought I would try foam pipe insulation for a start, to see if it made a difference, and hey-pesto! it worked. Almost all the wind noise has gone, in fact I think all I can hear now is wind whistling past the doors. I also taped over some holes which may have been adding to the whistling.@)

 

[Scoobyznack]

Excellent @Cornish4 thanks for trying this out and posting it up

I have my own noisy roof rack which I’ve been considered breaking down into components for a long trip. Sounds like I just need some pipe insulation and cable ties ...plus cycle inner tube to line the feet, as recommended previously

Best wishes, Simon.

 

[Cornish4]

Hi Simon, well it's worth a try. It worked for me, so I hope it does the trick.

Regards Brian.

 

[harbourseal]

I'll do the same for Robinette. I do hope they have black or olive drab tubing.

 

[laxeian]

No black or olive, no problem, camoflage duct tape to the rescue...

 

[Niels Svane]

I'll try it on my swedish, period roofrack, when/if it gets on again! Moving soon, so I think it might be sooner than expected