DIY Bed Rack How-To (pic heavy)

Well guys,
I'd been looking for a good solution for quite some time as to a bed rack I could make for my truck without spending a ton of money. I ended up basically using a bunch of stuff I had laying around, but this could be done for pretty cheap with a little creativity, even if you needed to buy all of the parts. So anyway, here goes:

Materials Needed:
-Yakima cross bars or equivalent (could also use plumbing pipe, etc. painted black or bedlined)
-old ski racks to take apart (could probably find on CL for cheap, or could just use u-bolts)
-3 feet of 1/8" x 3/4" steel angle
-big bag of nuts and bolts

Tools Needed:
-drill and quality drill bits
-grinder with cutoff wheel or metal saw
-lots of clamps
-spray paint
-patience!!

Step 1:
Take apart old ski racks - the only part of them that you will need is the bottom half of the clamp, or the piece to the left of the ski rack in this picture, slightly left of center (pic also gives a sneak peek of what's to come). You could also probably use u-bolts or some other method of clamping things down, but I had these laying around so I decided to go with that.


Step 2:
Cut the steel angle into 4 pieces that are each slightly longer than the ski rack clamps, or slightly longer than the width of your u-bolts if using those in place of the clamps. I cut mine into 5.5" sections.

Because I'm stupid, I used a hand saw with a metal blade rather than use a grinder


All 4 pieces cut - these will become the brackets that hold the cross bars to the bed rails.


Step 3:
Measure the distance in between the two holes in the ski rack clamp (or the distance between the two sides of the u-bolts if using those instead) and drill holes in your steel angle to match this distance so that you can slide the bolts through these holes. Now drill away! I clamped mine to a block of scrap wood so that it would be stable and easier to drill into.


Holes drilled


Hopefully this is making sense, or at least makes sense by the end.

Step 4:
Drill another set of holes on the other side of the brackets. These holes are where you will bolt the brackets to the inside of the bed rails, so make the holes however wide or narrow you want, as long as they're all the same. Each bracket should now have 4 holes, two on each side.
Note: don't make them the same width apart as the holes above (offset them somewhat, either wider or narrower) or you will run into clearance issues with the bolt heads.

I guess I forgot to take a picture of this step

Step 5:
Sand down all the rough edges from the cutting and drilling until you're satisfied.

Step 6:
Now for some test fitting!
Figure out where you want the cross bars to be located in the bed and how far apart you want them, and when satisfied, clamp your metal bracket right below it like this:

Note: You have the place the bracket a little ways down from what would be flush with the top of the bed rails, because the bed rail has an inner layer that would get in the way of the bolts when you go to bolt the bracket in place if you put it too high up. I put my brackets about 3/8" below lower than the top of the bed rails and had just enough clearance, but wouldn't want to go much higher.

Step 7:
Now, using the holes in the bracket as guides, drill into your truck bed! Remember - measure once, cut twice

Do this for all four brackets - 8 holes in your truck bed

Bolted in for test-fitting


Step 8:
Prime and paint the brackets.


Step 9:
Bolt everything up! It should look like this:




Step 10: Celebrate!

Finished product (with bike rack installed) - don't mind the filthy truck






So let me know what you guys think! I also added screw protectors to the exposed bolts for a more finished-off look.

 

A+ bro.

 

Thanks man! It took quite a while to make but I'm happy with the results!

 

Always down for resourceful DIY solutions. Theres a certain satisfaction you get from solving your problems with a little ingenuity instead of a lot of money.

Like my roof rack for example. It's not sexy, and doesn't let me sit at the cool kids table, but it solves my (perceived) problem of carrying a decent load while providing a good platform for attaching things like lights, awnings, shovel and axe, fishing rods, etc.

 

For sure! It's always rewarding when you can do something for cheap that turns out looking good and gets job done. I had the old Yakima bars and ski racks sitting around, so all in all I only had to spend $$ on the steel and the nuts/bolts.

 

Bro, wheres the write up!!!

 

No write-up, but I can tell you exactly what I did. I can go take a few more pics and stick them in a media album so you can see how it all mounts.

 

Love the step side! Nice write up as well.

 

Thanks! Not many stepsides around here. It also makes it hard because none of the companies make steel bed racks for the narrower width of the stepside, so that was just one more reason to make my own (besides being way less expensive)

 

I made my own bed rack as well. Check it out in my build thread. Came out pretty well I think.

 

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads...-4x4-pic-heavy-af.448825/page-5#post-15246899

 

Yeah glad you did the thinking on this I've been wanting a setup like this for mine and I can just copy your design for mine

 

Sweet let me know how it turns out! Let me know if you have any questions or want more pics as well.

 

Looks great!! I like the tie-downs you added as well. Super clean looking all around!

 

Pictures of the screw protectors:

Just cleans up the look a little.

 

any updates on how its holding up?

 

That truck ended up being totaled a few months after building the bed rack , and my new truck has a different setup I'm using with a canopy, so I can't really comment on longevity, but I'm sure it would have help up well!

 

it looked great... how were the bracket screws held in? did you have a nut and bolt on the other side?

 

Your write up here was how I cam up with my own version of that inexpensive bed rack. Thanks, very helpful. Only cost about $60 to put together and will be strong enough to hold an RTT or anything else I might use it for.

 

what tubing is that?