Roof Rack Design and Fabrication Weekend 5-6 Progress ;)

"Price is what you pay, value is what you get." -Warren Buffett

Said at least twice a day here.

 

Hahahaha. Do you have any idea how hard it was/is not to use that shit in marketing? The struggle is real.

 

This looks amazing. This is a list of things I would like to know, some have been answered, and some, as you stated, will be answered later:

Wind noise: not noticable
Load rating: TBD
Price: TBD
Clearance from roof: 0.3125"
Possible additional bracket for light bars larger than rack width?
Possible additional mount point to roof? (Using OEM holes?) Or is this going to be strong enough as is?

Sorry for all the questions, but hopefully these are questions others had as well

Thank You,
Brandon

 

I bet lol

 

Nicely done!

 

How about some reg cab love then?

You would be the first to design a reg cab-rack

 

Load Rating: Toyota lists the load of the roof at like 75-100 pounds depending on which google result you get. That's pretty crappy IMO. So let's look at it like this. Tensile strength of 316 stainless steel is about 80,000 PSI. For the rack itself that would be the "weak link" in the chain as that is what secures to the roof, but the factory installed thread septs are not 316 stainless. Not even close. So I feel like that becomes the weak link. Options: drill them out and upgrade to something with m8x100, stainless. This would be a chore. You'd effectively need to drop the headliner, make the alterations, add plating to the inside of the roof skin, etc....seems like a whole weekend/more than a six pack project. What I do know is that if the truck is in neutral...we can pull it across the parking lot with another truck from the rack. I don't think this actually proves anything and I don't know in what scenario we'd actually find that practical or safe but..... dares are dares and we like to accommodate. Roof top tents ( I have Tepui Kuk.3 weighs 125 pounds/net) no problem. Loaded tent distributes weight under use between the truck and the ground, added people etc..let's say 650 pounds. Basically that divided by two (half the weight is on the stilts on the ground) is 325 pounds and it holds that. The footprint of the tent distributes weight across all the load bars so it's negligible how much weight is on each bar. The biggest thing I think we'd see is how much weight becomes a problem to the point that it bends the bars and up to this point all I can confirm is that I haven't bent any bars. Having said that se do have the bars here without the powder coat on them and maybe its a good ides to see what we can stack on one bar, in the middle across a span and see when it gives if it gives at all? I wouldn't put an elephant up there, but most of the stuff any of us are taking out into the wild blue yonder.....it's coming back with you.

Roof clearance: Max is set at .3125" by adjusting the mount bolts up into the top of the slip and torquing it down. the rood rack mounts on 1" spacers. Any taller spacer would just increase that by the additional height of the spacer. Pretty flexible here.

Additional brackets: The bank loves it when we make things that sell. Lol. We are designer/fabricators. I think an assortment of brackets over time will materialize. I personally use BD lights so my default is to that but I understand there are other companies that make awesome stuff that don't cost a years tuition to make it easier to see in the dark so I guess the short answer would be...small company, easily adaptable...we will make you anything like that you want.

Additional mount point: We didn't utilize the center mount for the OEM roof rack. We used the two forward's most and at the rear, two attachment bolts through each bracket. If someone was really gonna bog one of these down with something I wouldn't hesitate to make the middle brackets for the additional load bearing capacity but under normal conditions I don't think it's something people will search for. But.....we tear up a lot of shit so who knows. Hahahah

Hope this answers everything for you.

 

I have a '97 Reg and I have had that thing FOREVER. Market order is: 3rd Gen DC (also fits back to 2005), next is same for Access Cab, followed by a coupe of others. Not against a Reg. Rack at all. Have to make some measurements to see what we'd be into it for.

 

Nice!
Hey, as long as we're on the list... last place is still a place

 

Yes sir. Forward is forward. Hahahaha

 

These are the most detailed answers ever. This does answer everything I asked. Now, once everything is solidified, I will probably be asking for brackets to fit a 52" straight light bar.

As ridiculous as this sounds, my plan is to put a 52" straight on the front, a 42" curved facing rear, and some side lights for other random things. Only reason is because I have them, and I want to use them... They were cheap Amazon lights, and I bought them because I'm crazy like that...

 

Brother I have found that out in the boonies....two candles is better than one candle. The rack is 51.125" Wide side to side out the outermost part in the front. Your light bar is going to look fine up there. You have exactly 48.00" inside bar clearance at the rear so the curved one will fit the back no problem.

"When you need it and don't have it you sing a different tune." Burt Gummer. Tremors.

 

That rack looks AWESOME! Great job with the design.

 

Thank you sir. I will finally get some sleep tonight I think. So much math. Hahaha

 

I was looking at the pictures when I realized all the edges have chamfer.

Did you CNC mill these parts or waterjet multi axis? That is the kind of detail I'm interested in, nice work!

 

We have a CNC router in house so this one was all CNC. If we make the leap to water jet in the future the finish edge chamfers would be done by hand on inverted routers post production. It was a big part of the thought about wind noise having all the edges chamfered. Additionally it should lessen abrasion on bungees, ratchet straps, etc....I'm glad you noticed that. The first one of these has that inset tail section.....that is for my bed rack rig so it nests when you use the pair together. We will offer this design and another one that has a softer, rounded end near the rear of the cab for guys that won't run an additional rack in the rear. There is a bed rack coming as well that is designed so that the very top of a stowed roof top tent sits dead level with a Pelican 1720 on the roof rack. Thought is that you can use level load platform to strap kayaks, etc....to the top of all your gear to get where you're going and then unload to commence camp fires, beer drinking and story telling.

 

These look solid, the bed rack I fabricated sits super low and had to trim the shark fin. Excited to see the development continue.

 

Nice job. Can’t wait to see the price point on these. A roof rack is in my near future.

 

8020 has a deflection calculator that allows you to input weight and bar length to find the amount of deflection for a static load(doesn't account for hitting bumps at speed) and it looks like you'd be ok on clearance with 200lbs at 42" just sitting there using 1020 stock. In the diy rack thread someone posted using tread step rubber on the top and I'm thinking it might be cheap insurance to protect the roof to put that or something like it on the bottom of the bars with the least clearance.

 

That is good information. You rock!I like the rubber buffer. That's a good idea just incase.