As requested by a couple people in another thread, this is the rundown on how I made my hitch/jerry can rack.
I am not responsible if you decide to tow something with your home made hitch and something breaks. Nor if you get a ticket for your jerry cans being on the back of the truck. Consult your local laws regarding jerry can mounting. I personally had several police behind me while it was on and nothing was ever said but that is no guarantee.
I put this all together in an afternoon/evening. I was under pretty tight time constraints as I had to leave to drive back across Canada sooner than I would have liked due to stupidity on my co-drivers half but I digress. One of the crappy 10L jerry cans leaked all over my stuff in the back on the 4runner which was packed to the roof and I decided enough was enough so I reasoned that the best way to get them out of the truck was to make a simple hitch and build a hitch mounted jerry can holder. I had to drive across western ontario which is terrible for gas stations especially through the nights. I would have went through the states but screw doing a border crossing with having the truck packed to the roof.
My old man handled most of the fabrication after I gave him the rundown on the original design, hes a better welder than me and I had my hands full putting the engine back together after the timing belt job and valve covers. Unfortunately leaving him to it led to several compromises due to him being in a bad mood due to outside things and time constraints that I'm not too happy with but I'll go over them as I post the pictures.
I'll start off with the materials list, this isnt exact as I'm going off of memory and what I can see.
Pre-made 2" receiver
12 x 2 in. Hitch Receiver Tube | Princess Auto
2' of 3"x3"x1/4" angle for the frame mount
5' of 2"x2"x1/4" square tube for the cross brace and jerry base
2' of 3"x1/4' flat bar for gussets
12' of 1"x1/8" flat bar for the top rail of the jerry can rack
16' of 1.5"x1.5"x1/8" angle for the jerry can rack frame
2 red and amber reflective stickers so no one hits it at night.
6' of chain
1 Weather resistant padlock
I'll start off with the Jerry can rack:
I based it off of 2 4x4/military/nato whatever you would like to call them sized 5gal jerry cans. It is built off of a 2"x2" tube that fits into the receiver. The base and corners are made with 1.5"x1.5" angle for strength and simplicity. The top rail and mid supports are made from the 1" flat bar. You can also see the reflective tape on the corners well from this angle, I didn't want someone running into it in a parking lot and coming after me for not being able to see it.
The rack is about 4' long 1' high and 10" deep. I put the jerry cans at either end of the rack so as to not obstruct the license plate and make me have to mount the plate on the rack. For the lock I welded on a chain on one end and wrapped it through the other side where it then locked onto itself with a padlock. This unfortunately still leaves it exposed to siphoners, so not really advisable to leave them filled with fuel when not actually needed. Also with the jerry cans removed the hatch will clear to swing open, but just barely.
From the top view you can see that I welded the angle straight to the 2"x2" tube. In hindsight I would have preferred to gusset the angle to the pipe for added rigidity. Also with the blank space in the middle I would have liked to box it in with some sheet metal and made a small locking tool box for backup oil and coolant and so fourth that I'd also prefer not to have to worry about leaking in the truck.
Onto the hitch itself:
The hitches structure is relatively simple. The two 1' long sections of 3"x3" angle bolt to the frame at the stock locations and then a 2"x2" square tube comes straight across connecting them. At the mid point on the cross bar the 2" receiver is welded on underneath. I cut down the receivers length to 6" iirc. Which left me with 6" to spare which I was intending to make a front mounted hitch too but did not have the time to do. The 2" receiver has a gusset that wraps around the entire tube for extra strength. I wanted to add another gusset on top of the receiver onto the cross bar but that didn't end up getting done.
I also added another gusset between the cross bar and the angle mounts. In hindsight I would have preferred the angle mounts be a little longer for more strength as well as stepping up to 3/8 thickness, but my dad was insistent that this was "overkill" as it was.
My old man instead of welding on nuts to the face of the rear cross bar for the 3/4" shackles decided to plunge holes in the mount angle instead for them to mount through. Needless to say I'm not very happy with that, unfortunately regardless of my insistence against it I came back to the garage after taking a break and the damage was done. Also I would have liked to install additional bolts for the frame mount as the 2 stock bolts locations are very close together, which isn't the best.
You can also see here that I beveled the end of the angle so that it wouldn't stick out past the bumper un-aesthetically. My intent was to make a pattern out of cardboard and to put a gusset along that bevel to the angle/cross bar which would have looked great and given it strength. Unfortunately that idea also got dropped.
A few more things in hindsight, I painted the hitch and frame with rust paint. However it didn't seem to fare well in the short time it has been on. If I did it again I likely would have used rubberized rockguard/undercoating/bedliner on it.
The jerry can rack also wobbles a little bit when mounted, I never heard anything while driving however. I used some bungy cords going to my shackles to ease it a little bit but it didn't prevent the wobble entirely. To fix this I could have did a few things.
1. I could have built up the corners on the tube where it goes into the receiver as they were very rounded and I beleive was the main source of the wobble.
2. I could have shimmed the receiver for a snugger fit.
3. I could have drilled a hole in the receiver, welded on a nut, then put a bolt in and used it like a set screw.
My Custom Hitch & Jerry Can Mount
Linear Mode
