SHOW OFF YOUR BED RACKS!!!!!

No..in my picture gallery. I'll just link them here. Let me know if you want other angles...

 

sry i figured it out right before you posted the pics. thanks man it looks great!

 

I just bought my toneau cover but one day I will put an expo rack and RTT on my Tacoma. I love all these racks guys and girls some great ideas here.

Has anyone ever put a drop down panel onto the side on their rack so you could put your camping stove on it? Also has anyone used the Batwing awning?

 

I have not seen anyone do that as of yet, but I could be wrong. I do however have a fold down table built into my swing out tire gate/high clearance bumper made by CBI Offroad

 

Palmetto, I particularly like that window decal. C/O '96 F-Troop here.

 

I've got a bike carrier now on each side of the rack.



These are the cross bars made by one member here on TW and then powder coated by another member (both in San Diego).

 

I'm diggin' the AP rack. That could be pretty handy and really easy to modify/ add to. It's nice to see guys fabbin their own stuff too. Nothing like ingenuity.

 

CVT has one "bat wing" in the works I believe. Or they're in talks with the design at least. The drop down you mentioned, I've seen it before, good idea, I think it'd be hard to execute though and still have it be practical. That swing down would take up some real estate somewhere. Looked into the frontrunner tables? Simple keyhole supports tack welded to the inside of the fender and boom, table.

 

Anybody have pics of a ladder rack over a Bestop?

 

Here is my bed rack - also, if you look closely, you can see my new 4xInnovations bumper.



Here is that bed rack in action with my RTT near Moab.

 

Finally got my expedition rack all done this past weekend. Big big thanks go out to Bryan (Specalt) for not only the use of his garage and tools, but also his welding experience and overall general know-how-to-get-shit-done. He also dedicated 15 hours to this project on his weekend. Also the same big thanks goes out to Steve (Staticsquelch) for being there with us all day and helping out with angle grinding, cutting, measuring, assembling, and just about every other damn thing we had to do to this rack to get it done.

Picked the base rack up a couple months ago from Seth, who had it made by another member on TW. Rack was designed to be used with a soft topper, but I had other plans for it. RTT is the ultimate objective, but I don't have a grand laying around to spend so it's going to be my expedition rack until then. The goal with this first build was to make some under-slung baskets to hold my outdoor gear in their storage bins, and also to hold my full-size spare, thus freeing up the entire bed of the truck for much more gear.

The rack itself was a great base and it's quite strong, especially for being a bolt-together. It came with a very simple aluminum clamp system that installed into the bed rails with cleats, but the clamp that held the footrail of this rack to the bed just didn't seem trustworthy. A little bit of hard off-roading would have probably been trouble on the clamps, especially with any type of load on them. I didn't want friction being the only thing that was holding this rack to my truck bed, so new clamps were also part of the plan.

First, we had to take the base rack and straighten it all out. It wasn't built perfectly straight to begin with, so we had to break it all down to its bones, fill in the old bolt holes with metal, and level everything back out and drill new bolt holes. Once that was done, it was time to measure and start fabricating the baskets.



Because of the uneven build of this rack in the first place, and even after 3 hours of "straightening", the two top holes were slightly different sizes but at least now they were squared off. Both baskets had to be fabbed up individually. One basket was built first, installed on the rack, and then new measurements were made for the second rack. The important thing was to get them the exact same width though. Each basket is made out of 1" square steel, welded at 45 degree angles on the corners so there are no open ends. The front basket that holds the spare tire has 2 extra rungs in the middle as runners, made out of 2x1" steel. The other basket has 2 runners in the middle of just the 1" steel, but they are still strong enough to hold my 230# body jumping up and down on them without any flex at all.

Here's Bryan finishing up the welding on the second basket.



Last project to do was to install welded rail brackets for the bed. By using the cleats and bolts from the other clamps, all we had to do was to make 6 L-shaped pieces of steel that welded to the foot rail of the rack, and drill a hole in them. Simple.

Here's the rack after assembly and bolt-on, with my spare loaded in the front basket.



So, here she sits all prepped and painted 2 days later. I made sure to really clean up the rack and the new baskets good with steel wool and mineral spirits before applying two coats of Rustoleum bedliner spray. Let it all cure up, then re-assembled the rack and put her back on the truck.





And it all fits in my garage, even with the spare tire loaded. I also can take the spare off the rack and put 4 of my camping gear storage trunks perfectly up top. You can see a couple of them in this pic behind the rack on the shelf. I normally only take 2 of those trunks for even a long multi-night camp trip, so this just means I can leave the spare in place up top and then have the entire truck bed available for coolers, extra water, gas, more gear, etc.



All in all, I'm really pleased with this project. It's rock solid, holds everything perfectly, and gives the truck a really unique look while also being practical. There's room under the baskets if I still wanted to put a canvas or poly cover on the rack and sleep under it, but I'll just go with a tent for now and wait for the RTT.

 

No, but you gave me a great idea for my marine grill (mounts to the railing of my boat).

 

Just finished putting on my Relentless bars and a Megawarrior rack for my spare tire. It looks to damn big I think....thoughts?

 

home built.. detachable rear so can haul my bike when necessary.

with back on




back off

 

That ... looks .... Awesome!

 

Love the truck. What kind of water jugs are those and where did you get them?

 

Here's mine, I built the two cross bars and added the accessories. Works great for me.

 

I'd guess Rotopax

 

my home made rack

 

F'in sweet guys, now I have a winter project to do!