tall bed bars and stiffness

hey,
so im looking at doing some taller bed bars, so i can use them as a kayak rack too. From what im seeing, 19-20" seems to be the general height to the top of the cab.

now, if i do a tent, that seems like alot of potential leverage on them. at that height- should i just weld them together like a normal bedrack? Any ideas are good.

 

What does the rack attach to - the bed floor or the bed sides?
If attached to the bed sides I would most definitely add bed stiffeners.
No matter which, all welded construction, done correctly, will likely resist lateral sway better than bolted.

EDIT: Corrected 'lateral'

 

Seconded about making sure you have bed stiffeners, if you don't already. These beds aren't as strong laterally as steel ones.

 

they will be mounted in the track.
they are the tall bars from 4x innovations, going to get a custom height of 19 or 20. once i get them im going to get some 1.75 tubing and weld them together as a full rack it seems.

i'll check into bed stiffeners too.

 

any other ideas? I was gong to weld some stainless anchor points on there too. also- should i use 1.5" box tube on the two top rails?

 

I have a bed cage from Brute Force fab. for my RTT. No stress on the bed sides this way and some added structure to the rear. Check it out....

https://www.bruteforcefab.com/bed-cages.html

 

Any rack that mounts directly (or almost directly) to the truck's frame should be sturdier and less prone to future issues than one that attaches to the bed side rails.
'Cuz we <NEVER> overload the rack ....
EDIT:
The weight of any thing added to the truck reduces its payload capacity by the same amount.

 

right, thats why im trying to make this is light as possible, but it seems the trifeca is coming into play- strength/cost/weight

 

Everything we do to our toys has a cost-to-benefit ratio that has to be evaluated. Gain something, lose something. That's life.

 

always.

like bikes- cheap light strong, pick two. haha