Bent Prinsu Rack

Its his attitude..he was starting shit in the Pro threads the other day.

 

The aluminum is not going to break. No, you don't need to heat it up. I wouldn't put truck weight on it.

Just use regular c clamps or bessies from harbor freight every foot or so in the effected area, and you'll get it 90% there. The rest can be done by hand.

 

It's not built to take force in that direction.

 

There's no structural support there. Might as well have hung it off a spoon. If it was gusseted from behind it would have been fine.

 

Yup, depending on the angle of the rope, potentially quite a bit more force than just 200lb. I wouldn't be surprised if the entire mounting rail got ripped out if you tried to hang a hammock that was fairly taught.

Should be easy to bend that thin aluminum back into shape though, just don't flex it back and forth several times or it will fatigue crack.

Pro tip, Don't use anything really hot like a propane torch/stove. Aluminum transitions to a liquid very quickly (compared to steel which softens first before going liquid). One minute the aluminum bar you're trying to heat won't budge, the next moment liquid aluminum is dripping on your boot (also don't wear sandals when doing this)

 

That chart doesn't tell the whole story. It's assuming the load is static. I imagine plopping your ass in the hammock the load increases a metric fuck tonne until it reaches a static resting point.

 

Does that equal 3.8 imperial fuck Megagrams?

 

@AKLA98 you don't even need to take the rack off. Could just take the last two bars off and do it on the truck

 

Vice went well. Although there is some minor “waves” still present in the bar. Might take a mallet to it.

 

Why would you attach a hammock there in the first place? It’s not designed to handle weight in that direction.

 

He's just using a vice....

 

You'll have to go slightly past "flat" to get it straight. Add some dowels here and try. You will be mimicking brake press tooling. It still won't be perfect and that area is now a fatigue point no matter how you bend it back. Keep an eye on it for cracking/tearing.

 

i agree lol

 

What @monkeyevil said. Your going to need to bend it past to get it straight. Are these racks powdercoated, or anodized? If PC you can't use heat you'll melt the PC off before you get to a temp that makes it easier to bend. If anodize you'd need to use a oven, no direct flame. Or since you have it all apart see if you can just get two new side rails? Aluminum does like a little heat to persuade it to move. Some aluminum may crack if bent to far. Depends on its alloy, 3000, 5000, 6061, 7075, hell even different series can have different tempers. IE 7075 T-6 would crack if you tried to bend it without heat. Have fun and good luck!

 

Seems like the Prinsu rack is less robust than I thought. I didn’t realize it was made from recycled Coors cans.

 

Hang a hammock off the other side, problem solved.

 

No the whole thing is now no good. I'll give you scrap price for the aluminum but you have to pay for shipping.
kidding of course..looks like your on the road to recovery and will have a custom designed rack that all the cool kids will want to copy.

 

Well, that was a complete improper use for the rack. It is not made for those kind of lateral forces. Just looking at the rack you can understand that's not what it's designed for. We all have those occasions that our heads are so far up our butts we can't tell what's going on. It was a mistake and mistakes happen.
Hint, flat metal sheet is nowhere near as strong as round or square tube.
and for that matter the mounting points on the Tacoma are not designed for such lateral forces. If I had a square around TUBE rack I would be very careful and test it a little at a time to see if it could handle the lateral force of a hammock with a fully grown man in it.

 

We all make mistakes. Especially if beers were involved. Lol. I would start by disassembling it and trying to slowly bend it back. Maybe placing it between two two by fours and hammering it out?
Good luck. If all else fails I'm sure you could buy just the one piece as a replacement part.

Edit. Guess I should have read every post. Others already had that idea.