Cheap and quick RTT Bed Mount

So, I ordered some bed rails as a temporary solution to mount my roof top tent while I figure out if I want a mid height bed rack or if I want to build an offroad trailer again. However, I found out a few days after ordering that they are on backorder until mid december and I have a big trip coming up next week. So, I needed a quick and cheap solution to mount my RTT.

I bought a 10' piece of superstut from the electrical section at home depot and the L brackets, 1/2 bolts and spring nuts for it.

Total cost was around $40-$50.

Plugged my angle grinder into the Taco bed outlet and chopped the 10' section in half. The length worked out perfect to sit directly onto the bed rails. Used the L Brackets to bolt the entire thing into the bed cleat system. The whole process maybe took half an hour. The tent weight will rest on the bedrails and not into the cleats.

Simple and effective quick solution I figured I'd share. The whole system is rock solid and not going anywhere.



The photo makes it look like the rail is bent but it is perfectly straight. The L bracket is bent after I torqued it down.

 

A good temp. fix. Nicely done. What exactly did you use to hook the l brackets into the rails--a bolt and. . .?

 

I think they are cal led spring nuts. It's a superstrut part. Basically its a little plate with a 1/2" threaded hole in it and a spring. I pulled the spring off and the threaded plate slides perfectly into the bed rail system. 6 or so of them costs around $5. I've also used them to mount quick fists for my axe.

 

The rail is seriously not bent?

The top of the bed side and the L bracket are parallel to each other, and the gap on the L bracket against the rail increases between the bed side and the bolt, just like it would be if it was sagging?

 

Yeah, those are exactly what I need. Thanks !

 

It's just the picture. I couldn't bend that bar if I tried. It's a much heavier guage than I needed but it's all that HD had. I could probably drive the truck on the 5" lengths and it wouldn't budge. You can see in the first picture that the rail is flat and the bracket is bent up to meet it. Photo trickery.

 

No problem. Electrical section of HD and Lowes

 

Seems legit, just crazy angles in that pic so I had to ask.

Unistrut is strong stuff, definitely shouldn't be bending from 100 lbs of RTT.

 

Haha. When I saw how the pic came out, I thought the same thing. That's why I put the little disclaimer in there.

 

The bent bracket totally throws off the perspective. If you cover it with your finger, the bar looks straight. At least in the 2nd photo. In the first it still seems jacked.

 

I blame Steve Jobs.

 

****NOTE - I totally stole this from somewhere else (cited) and helped a friend with it. Now that I'm looking for it here I don't see it on the tacomaworld forums:
http://www.clubfrontier.org/forums/f23/diy-utilli-trac-tie-down-points-41784/

END NOTE ******


DO IT YOURSELF BED TIE DOWN ANCHORS:

This mod is simple to do with 1 wrench and about $10's worth of hardware that can be found at Home Depot.

Items you will need:

2010-2013 Chevy Equinox & GMC Terrain Hitch U- Spring Nuts by GM 11610645

Spring Nuts (can be found in electrical section of Home Depot)


Square Washers (can be found next to spring nuts)


2"

$17 The ROP Shop | (3-Pack) Trip Spring Eye Bolts 5/8" for Meyer Fisher Boss Diamond Blizzard Snowplow Blade

Eye Bolts w/ nuts (found in hardware section)


The spring nuts and washers came in packs of 5 so I bought 1 package of each and 5 Eye Bolts.

***NOTE**** I also bought some wingnuts/thumb nuts so that I could easily unscrew / move these anchors, and I use it in place of the little nut used for tightening *****

Step 1: Assemble your materials


Step 2: tighten nut on eye bolt to about halfway up the threads, and place the washer on. Then thread the

$11 Thomas & Betts GIDDS-461512 ZA1003/8EG-10 Spring Nut 5 Per Bag, 3/8", Silver

spring nut onto the eye bolt.



Step 3:Place your newly assembled part in the Utili-trac just like the stock adjustable cleats. Then while holding the eyebolt use a wrench (9/16 in my case) to tighten the nut on the eyebolt. **OR use a thumbscrew instead so you don't need a wrench*** Then you are ready to use


Step 4: Stand back and enjoy!

 

Can you please post or pm me a couple pics of how you mounted that axe? I have some extra quick fist grips laying around that need to be put to good use!

 

Interested in knowing what bed rails were OOS until December.

 

Cool, really useful info. Thanks!

 

They were the Inno bed cargo racks from etrailer.

 

If you look at the attached photos from with the airline track above, I did basically the same thing with a piece of 1"x 4" steel to drop down the quick fist below the rail. This way the axe sits right above the wheel well. I took it off to mount the tent so I can't get pics of it right now.