Finally built my bed rack

Hi all. I finally pulled the trigger on a roof top tent and built a rack to put it on. I used 1/4 steel plate and 12 gauge Unistrut for the frame and attached it to the rails in the bed so no drilling. I've still got some welds to clean up and corners/edges to fix, but she's good to go on the first run. Once the shakedown trip is over I'll take it all apart and paint it with Raptor Liner. The welds aren't the best, but they should be effective. I also built the racks to allow me to still use my hard tonneau cover. Pics of it all put together soon. Here are some preliminary shots. Whole rack system cost right around $100.

 

Nice. Feels satifying doing it yourself . Great job. After some grinding and some painting it will look awesome

 

The penetration on those welds looks a little lacking to be honest. I would grind them down and do them again, looks like the unistrut parts were not cleaned before welding. Try cleaning both surfaces with a roloc disc, then turn up the heat a bit(or change the wire speed) on the welder until you can get a single solid bead instead of layering like you did.

*not saying you suck at welding, Im just trying to look out for you and your rooftop tent.

 

You aren't wrong, but getting a solid bead from a Harbor Freight MIG welder and flux wire is easier said than done. I'll definitely do quite a bit of grinding and re-welding after this weekend.

 

Oh I know, I have a CH welder from walmart using flux core. For the amount I weld, it didnt make sense to buy a expensive one.

 

I am working on something like that too. I will bend up brackets and then use T-slot framing extrusion. I also have the hard cover. It looks like the weight is carried just outside of the bed rails? Hard to see from the pic, but it might be better to have them sit on the our 1'' of bed rail. Maybe it does, I just can't see from the pics Nice work!

 

Thanks. The front weight is mainly on the bed rail and the rear ones are about half off. I went 1” outside of my tonneau cover so it wasn’t too crowded. Once the cover goes back on (after this weekend) it will be truly secure since the rack hugs it everywhere. I built it this way so the rails will bolt directly to my 14ft utility trailer as well. The brackets should fit my son’s ‘13 Tacoma too so he can use it when he wants without having to steal my truck with it.