Leitz Luggage Rack Installation

A few photos would greatly help us help you ?...........Bruce

You will need some large stainless steel washers above and below where it mounts to the rain shield (inner engine lid cover).  Even if you never put any weight on it, it will still vibrate and fracture the fiberglass without the washers to spread weight.  I'd put clear silicon under the washers too.  The Leitz luggage rack always reminded me of the Nun's Hat in the Flying Nun for some reason.

What fractures and cracks fiberglass is raw and sharp edges. If the fiberglass is drilled, the edges need to be rounded and sealed with super glue, polyester resin, or even paint or nail polish. I'd use polyester resin here though, and possibly add a couple layers of new glass to reinforce the deck lid.

In order for more glass to be layered, the surface needs to be sanded or roughed up.

It's really not hard to work with fiberglass.

@30West

My Reuter luggage rack may not have the same configuration as your Lietz, but attaching the rack to your car should basically be the same process. NOTE: My rack was originally chrome when I had it on my previous silver Speedster. I have since powder-coated it black to color match my current Speedster.

Click on pics to enlarge...

Hardware you will need: 4 Carriage bolts (size to allow passage through the attachment points of your rack with enough exposed thread on the underside of rain tray to apply fender washer, spacer and Nyloc nut...

8 Nyloc nuts

8 Fender washers

4 Nylon spacers

2. Make note of the attachment points of your rack...

Here is what the carriage bolts, fender washers, spacers and Nyloc hardware will look like when applied to your rack...

Position your rack to rest on the grill...

Put carriage bolts through attachment holes of the rack. Place the rack in proper position on the grill and secure with blue painters' tape. Make note of where the bolts make contact with the rain tray and make a visible mark for you to drill appropriate size hole for carriage bolt to pass through.

On the topside of the rain tray, It will take some trial and error to place a Nyloc nut (with a fender washer underneath) in the proper position to make contact with the rain tray. This will act as a backing plate for the fender washer, spacer and Nyloc nut you will tighten on the underside of the rain tray.

Make note of the bolts passing through to the underside of the rain tray. Apply fender washer, spacer (cut to size) and Nyloc nut.

You will need to modify/manipulate (shape) the fender washer and nylon spacer to fit the contour of the rain tray. This will minimize cracking the fiberglass from applying uneven pressure on the rain tray as you tighten the Nyloc (fender washer/spacer) to secure the luggage rack. (Fender washer is not in place in this pic).

You may have to modify some of these procedures to fit your specific application, but it should give you some direction in attaching your luggage rack.

BTW, it is not advisable to load a heavy suitcase on the rack. I usually just carry some polishing supplies, microfiber cloths an other odds and ends in the luggage when traveling.

I hope you find this info useful!

Thank you ALL for the great tips, info, and potential gotcha’s!! Super helpful -

And @MusbJim - with your level of detail and instruction I practically expected to look up and see you standing right there with me in my garage! Thank you for being SO gracious with your time and knowledge!

I’m out of town for a few days for work but am very anxious to get back in the garage to tackle the install. I will report back, and (Bruce!) with pics!

Cheers,

Brent (30West)

Great tutorial Jim!!!!

Needs to be archived on the site for future reference.

@Panhandle Bob posted:

Great tutorial Jim!!!!

Needs to be archived on the site for future reference.

I'll second that.

@MusbJim is the man.

@Stan Galat posted:

@MusbJim is the man.

And I'll second that.

NO, YOU'RE THE MAN!

@MusbJim posted:

NO, YOU'RE THE MAN!

No Jim you are!

This reminds me of a story from WAY back when I started at NY Telephone. Obviously, I was a noobie. I worked in Newburgh NY, which has a pretty high crime rate and drug problem still to this day. It was worse in the 90s, then it got even more messed up. It has improved some, but it is still a place where you don't want to get lost at night.

I was working in an alley, mounting a terminal or moving some cross-connects, whatever, doesn't matter. This "gentleman"(hint: hoodlum) comes up to me and says "You da man?" and I reply "no, I'm the telephone man."

All the boys in the hood knew what all the phone guys looked like. Except me, so they thought I was an undercover cop. Well, I never got shot, so I guess they believed me.

I bought a used "antique" Amco 356 luggage rack.  It came with the stand-off bolts/spacers but they weren't tall enough for a CMC trunk lid.  I bought stainless steel cap bolts.  I cut pieces of chrome pipe used for toilet water connection to cover the threads.  356 B's up had captured threads in the trunk's rain shield - so spacing was different.  I have a CMC with the cast aluminum hibachi grill so a rack with thick standoffs won't fit between the grill ribs.

My favorite is the Reutter rack which Jim has.  Back in 1956, it was 70 DM ($17 then) for the standard silver painted model --- or 80 DM for body color.  None were chromed.

Here Amco on my car. (I'm working on the Barn Find patina).

"...All the boys in the hood knew what all the phone guys looked like. Except me, so they thought I was an undercover cop. Well, I never got shot, so I guess they believed me."  - @DannyP

Bwaaaa - great story! Glad you're still around, my brutha!

Update: Installation complete! Many thanks to all who responded with input and guidance. especially MusbJim with his great detailed ‘tutorial’ (@PanhandleBob - yes! Let’s archive that please!!).

My old VS rack and the new Leitz reproduction :

Hardware from MusbJim’s suggested shopping list - I added the plumbing supply lines (Wolfgang’s suggestion) to cover the carriage bolt threads (they fit perfectly over my 5/16” carriage bolts). In addition to fender washers I also added neoprene washers to ‘line’, or cushion, the fender washer’s contact with the fiberglass:

Before assembly I test fit the carriage bolts to determine and adjust rack height. It’s easy and simple to do this before the bolts are affixed to the rack. I had noticed from file pics and other resources that some installations had the rack frame almost flush to the grill, while others looked like the frame was ‘elevated’ by at least a couple of inches. I opted to sort of split the difference by installing my rack so that the the lower portion of the frame is a shade over an inch above the grill. This test fit was super helpful since the upper (forward) portion of the rain tray is shallower than the lower (aft) portion.

Carriage bolts secured to rack allow for an opportunity to test fit the rack itself.  I was working with holes already drilled in the rain tray from my old VS rack installation and didn’t want to drill new holes if I could help it. Initially the new bolt pattern didn’t line up perfectly with the existing holes, but several gentle taps with a rubber mallet along the length of each bolt provided just the encouragement needed to get the bolts to slide into the existing holes. The nut seen on the bolt (lower pic) acts as a ‘stop’ and determines the height of the rack as the remaining length of exposed bolt slides into the mounting hole:

Satisfied with the height of the rack, and with all four corners adjusted, I carefully marked the bolt position and added the plumbing supply line (simply cut it to length) to cover the threads, using thread-lock on the nuts during reassembly to keep it all snug and secure:

Finally, I positioned fender washers (and the paired neoprene washers) under the grill on the top of the rain tray, carefully aligning them with the mounting holes. Using one of those extending magnetic ‘wands’ made it fairly easy to manipulate the washers into place without having to remove the grill.

From there, I simply (slowly, gently) dropped in the rack, guiding the bolts through the washers and down into the holes. All that was left was to add washers and nuts from below and tighten it all up snug while being careful not to over tighten. I ended up not needing nylon spacers under the lid.

Done, Baby!

I love the Reuter racks, definitely appreciate their historical authenticity, and also understand that the Leitz racks weren’t introduced until around 1960 (from MusbJim’s vast knowledge bank) but sourcing a Reuter in good condition was very expensive, and Sierra Madre had a 20% off sale that made an impulse buy of the ‘driver quality’ Leitz very easy. It’s a definite ‘upgrade’ from the stock VS rack in my humble opinion. Now on a quest for some nice leather luggage straps to complete the look!

Again, many thanks to all, and Happy Motoring!!!

- Brent

@Wolfgang reports that the pics aren’t showing up. Not sure what issue might be (they show up in post on my computer). Sorry everyone. I’ll try to sleuth it out . . . .

Same here.  Not showing in Windows (Chrome) or iOS (Safari).

My apologies. I will try re-post when I have a few spare minutes.

HOPEfully, I can get a couple of pics to ‘take’ to the site this time!

Ultimately, I just wanted to express my thanks for the generous assistance and input, and maybe pass along a little of my experience and what I learned during the process.

Here’s a look at the completed install:

Cheers, Everyone!!

Well, Those last three pics look good!

Well, shucks (dirt kick, dirt kick) . . . . . .

Glad that they came through!!

(. . . . . . still damn frustrated that the original more detailed post and pics didn’t post completely, BUT, those things happen, I guess . . . . I mean, we are posting about our super cool cars . . . . how bad can things be . . . . . . . ) 😎