Roof rack DIY

Update.
Day 3


Getting really close! Need to drill a few more holes and fine tune some of the fitment issues I'm still having. Mostly to clear the roof so I'm not touching anywhere. After trimming for 33s this will be a breeze. Haha

 

After 3 days it's finally bolted together!!! Couldn't be happier with how this turned out. I'm never building another one again though. Haha so much work.
Will be painting next weekend.

 

Sketchy. But it holds me. 190 pounds on a single cross bar. So with all 4 I'm sure it can hold a lot

 

Looks really good! Nice work!

 

Looks sick! Ahuimanu-Kahalu’u area?

 

Careful, that’s not too far from the dinosaurs!

 

Nice work. Very Impressed.

 

3 coats of primer and a couple coats of finish already on.
Will post picks of final product tomorrow when mounted, provided all things go according to plan with the painting.

 

Rack is getting mounted

 

One word. Stoked. I'm done.

 

Total cost is $245 for material. Took 3 days to build start to finish.
A prinsu rack after shipping to Hawaii is roughly $900. So about $650 in savings. Not nearly at the quality of a prinsu rack, and I respect their design and price, but I'm happy with how this turned out. It was a good experience building this.

I will most likely be welding the rack together in the next 6 months as well as looking into powder coating it to color match my truck.

Edit. If I just welded it together from the beginning instead of using roughly 50 bolts/nuts and washers the total cost would have been closer to $185.

 

Looks awesome! I’d be willing to bet you learned a lot doing it, at the least that your skill level is pretty damn impressive!

Truck and rack looks awesome!

 

Appreciate that, but this does prove that these racks are very easy to make and everyone should do it. Haha

 

Awesome rack man! Over the weekend I’ve concluded that I will be building my own as well. Can’t Justify the price of shipping to Alaska. Did you think about building it out of aluminum? I’m going to price check some 3/16 alum plate. FYI I’ve been finding extruded t slot aluminum bars on Amazon and eBay for a very fair price. Also how did you mount the cross bars and the fairing to the side brackets? Didn’t see any pictures of that.
@Dr. Emmett Brown

 

I used c channel steel (1"x2") to mount everything to everything. Haha. But seriously.

I can get aluminum extrusion shipped to Hawaii for less than $250 total so at that price I might as well have bought a prinsu. I also didn't want to do aluminum side rails and steel cross bars because mixing metals isnt recommended, ever.

I've seen the extrusion pieces on Amazon and eBay and my suggestion is really look st dimensions. A lot of them are in millimeters and when you convert those to a more understandable unit of measure, they aren't very big at all. Like 0.75"x 1.5". That's tiny for a cross bar, depending on what you're putting on the rack.

 

Nicely executed! After seeing first 2 pages, I said to myself "Ah.. I don't think so.." but it quickly turned around after seeing the final product. That looks fantastic!

 

Haha thanks.

 

Very nicely done. Definitely plants the idea worm

 

Excellent job on the roof rack man, it looks great! Nice looking truck too