DIY Bed Rack or Roof Rack No Welding

I really liked the look of Front Runners Slimline Racks but the price of them was a little too steep for my pockets at almost $1000. I started looking into extruded aluminum as an alternative and managed to throw together a rack for around $300 from TNUTZ.com

All the extruded aluminum is 1" by 2" with the side pieces being 60" and the inside, front, and back being 50" to fit my short bed. The extruded aluminum that go to the sliders on the bed are 12" and are cut at 45 degrees on both ends and are tapped which they did for me at Tnuts

my order list

This is everything pre-assembly

All the Tnuts that hold it together and what the 45 degree cut and taps look like

The small triangle pieces were put in the inside corners where the sides and front and back meet. The large triangle pieces go on top of the corners. The L shape Brackets I put under both sides of every piece of aluminum that makes up the middle of the rack. The flat pieces with 2 holes are just end caps

Everything all assembled

I attached it to the bed side rails with Tnuts. It sits ~12" below the top of the cab and ~6" above the top of the bed

As far as rigidity I would say the weak spot are the bed rails however that's where the front runner racks mount also so . I can stand on it no problem and plan to put a roof top tent on it soon. The rack currently has 4 pieces of extruded on it horizontally to mount things to, but I plan on adding more eventually as they cost about $20 a piece.

 

Pretty cool

 

Wow I really like this. Amazing idea.

 

Cool looking, any idea how much it can hold?

 

not sure yet. I walked around on it and im about 180 pounds feels pretty sturdy though.

 

Sweet. I used the same extrusion and a series of L-brackets to get mine to work with a tonneau. I use mine for kayaks, bikes, and with a basket to haul hoses for work. Power to the DIY people! Also, 1/4” carriage bolts from any hardware store work great, too! Lol

 

We use some of that to build things at work, it’s amazing how strong it is. Looks great!

 

That turned out great. Makes me wanna redo the crossbars on my DIY rack in this stuff.

 

Awesome work!

If you do run into strength issues you could put another flat plate on each side of the miter joint. Then you'd just have to figure out the bedrail.

 

Browsing tnutz.com they even have pre tapped cross bars for prinsu style racks. Pretty cool stuff. https://www.tnutz.com/product/ex-10...tted-aluminum-extrusion-for-prinsu-roof-rack/

 

Incredible work bro!

You get mad props from me for this one.

 

This looks like something I can place inside of my soft topper. Very nice work and thank you for sharing.

 

@Blais03

 

Mind sharing your L-bracket setup/parts list or some up close pictures?

I want to be able to carry some bikes over my cover - kb voodo and similar options are overkill and over priced for what I need.

 

Now it's not as fancy as your setup but this custom built job works mighty fine for me and my needs.

All Said and done I think it ran me about $40 for lumber, the stain and spar varnish I already had from making arrows.

 

I got the extrusions from McMaster Carr which were about $100 for both of them. The hardware all came from Lowe’s which will be about another $40. I got the L-brackets from work and cut/drilled them as needed, so you will need to find something similar. A series of 3 L-brackets is not as clean as the S-systems from KB voodoo, but you can customize this however you see fit. It also sits pretty low to the tonneau which is what I wanted.

Also, I mounted the front rails to the bed rail system, but the rear-most rails are mounted to one of the bolts closest to the tailgate on the part of the bed where people usually mount bed stiffeners (see picture). This provides more of a gap for stability with kayaks and such.

Then, there is a 5’ piece of strut for each bike across these bed rails (around $20 at Lowes’s). BTW, 1/4” carriage bolts slide in the extrusions decently well if you want to save some money from buying the hardware from McMaster Carr.

Feel free to PM me if you want to talk about it more.

 

Awesome! This is helpful. I'm on travel for and not near my truck now but I may be PM'ing you when I get back and start working through how this could work.

 

Great idea.. FYI .. by looking at it, you don't want to pick too much load on it because it look like the only thing that taking the load is the side mounting rail, usually you want to have the load transfer to the bed not the mounting rail.... Just a reminder, other than that ahahha... it a great idea to mount a spare tire...

 

Good job on the rack, but my mind is blown from the ice tray ^^ great idea !

 

What is the update, how is it holding together? Looking into options similar to this for an off-road trailer build. Do you think something like this with added corner gussets would be strong enough for off road use and a RTT mounted to it?... Any advice for someone looking to DIY a bed rack for off road use?

thanks![/QUOTE]