DIY Shell roof rails

Sooo... I've been on this forum for a few years and haven't really posted much but I thought I'd share a roof rack I cut to fit the top of my shell.

The roof rack came from a Chrysler Town and Country or Grand Caravan and I cut the slotted rails down about 5-6 inches and cut the cross rails down about 2 inches. The rack fits beautifully on my long bed shell. When I attached the rails, I used all the existing parts except for the bolts. I the bolts I used were long enough to use figure 8 hardware on the bottom side to mount cargo netting.

Not bad for a lightweight rack that only cost $10 at a salvage yard and about an hour of work invested.

Enjoy my little weekend project.

 

Nice work! I saw a dude on Instagram do this with and old 4runner roof rack. Just it down to size and mounted it on the side of his shell to carry stuff that way too.

 

Thanks! I actually follow Stirling Overland on Instagram and they have a bunch of sweet DIY repurposed parts on their rig. I initially got 2 of these racks and was going to use them to mount traction boards over the windows but I decided to use them for something else.

 

Well keep the projects coming! I built a simple rack for my shell out of unistrut. I don't have any photos of photos of it. The cross bars are very low profile. I can barely get my fingers below them. It carries our kayaks and paddle boards perfectly and super close to the truck without touching the roof of the cab.

 

I'll be looking this winter for some projects to start in the spring. I think my next big project is going to be adding a large roof basket I got from my brother dirt cheap. The basket came off his 4dr wrangler and covered the entire roof so I will probably have to modify it to fit but atleast it came with an awning already attached. I don't plan on carrying anything super heavy and will probably find a different way to mount it to the rails other than the cross bars I have up there, but we will see.

 

Nice! Yeah I could a lot of cool things to do with a full roof basket. My wife wants me to make a platform where we can lay up there to stargaze.

 

Update:
So I recently bought an old Garver Roof basket from my brother. The rack was taken off his 4dr Wrangler and was about 2 ft too long for my 6 ft Leer shell. So within the last couple days I mocked up the rack on my DIY roof rails using carriage bolts, washers, and wing nuts which conveniently fit in the roof rails without spinning. I had to flatten the carriage bolt heads with my grinder for clearance to get them in the rails. I intend to use 6 of them to mount the basket to the rails directly. At first I was worried about torquing the wing nuts down on the basket because i was worried the square part of the carriage bolt would turn and bend the aluminum rails outward, I was surprised to find out how strong the rails were.

So after mocking up both basket end pieces as far as I could move them apart on the rails, I found that the total length of the side rails between them would be 47". I had to cut the flanges off and take 11 3/4" off each end of the side rails to keep the center support in the middle, and will reattach the flanges. After all work is done I'll remove the rust and repaint before adding anything else to it such as lights, awning, etc.

Total cost of project so far:
Roof rails- $10
Hardware- approx $20
Garver Basket- $100

I will add pictures later.

 

Some more pictures of the project. Still waiting on rivet nuts and new plastic end caps to be delivered.

 

Nice work OP, thanks for sharing

 

Just realized I never posted the finished rack lol. Not that anyone was at the end of their seat but here they are.

I had a blast building this and planning it all out.