Who has built a roof rack?

[jham]

Dug out the tube bender from storage today. Starting to make plans for a low profile rack for my 01.

My biggest question is mounts. I'll have to fab something I'm sure, and fabbing isn't exactly my specialty.

Anyone built their own rack? Would love to see plans, pictures, hear material opinions, etc.

 

[the great him]

i have built a couple of them, sold one of them to a member here, planning on making more. just finished up another one last week, we think we have the design down now and so we are building a jig off of this one to make the others go a lot faster(its amazing how much time they take to make). we made our mounts to fit into the factory rails and attach that way. this next week it will be going off to the powder coater and from there i will be able to post some picks of the mounting system. we are still trying to find the "perfect" strength-weight ratio, they so far have all been way over built and overkill. we also make detachable light bars to go with them with several different options of lights, and other accessories to accompany them.

 

[sonoranrunner]

I'm curious to see the results as well...

 

[the great him]

there are some pics of the first rack in my pic album if you wanta take a look at that one. all of the others are shorter "half" racks(meaning they only come up to the sunroof) that rack was a tad heavy, but stupid strong.

 

[A.Wilson013]

User JMT2404 (Those numbers may be wrong) also built one. He's around the forums, not hard to find.

 

[fightman80]

Here's a link to mine....

My Home made Safari Rack - YotaTech Forums

I'm not using mine anymore....actually....never really did....just sucked up my gas mileage for nothing....

 

[w650gb500]

I'm a noobie here on the Toyota forum, but figured I could atleast show my half-@ss attempt at building a roofrack for my old Jeep. Its a bit different than most racks out there, but it was built with a specific purpose in mind. I needed light to the side of my rig when we are jetskiing. Since someone breaks their ski just about everytime we go out and we end up working on them either at the beach or hotel parking lot, the lights provide a wonderfully bright work area.

First attempt, but it worked out fairly well. Unfortunately I sold the Jeep a month later, so now I need to build one for the T4R.

I know its not to everyones liking(or anyone's for that matter), so take it easy on the new guy.

Jeep pictures by w650gb500 - Photobucket

 

[jham]

i have built a couple of them, sold one of them to a member here, planning on making more. just finished up another one last week, we think we have the design down now and so we are building a jig off of this one to make the others go a lot faster(its amazing how much time they take to make). we made our mounts to fit into the factory rails and attach that way. this next week it will be going off to the powder coater and from there i will be able to post some picks of the mounting system. we are still trying to find the "perfect" strength-weight ratio, they so far have all been way over built and overkill. we also make detachable light bars to go with them with several different options of lights, and other accessories to accompany them.

The biggest thing I'm unsure of is the mounting points. I want this rack to sit low. It won't have sides (basket style). I want low profile, low to the roof.

What material did you use? I'm pretty set on using round tube, but square would be so much easier. No bends!

 

[the great him]

The biggest thing I'm unsure of is the mounting points. I want this rack to sit low. It won't have sides (basket style). I want low profile, low to the roof.

What material did you use? I'm pretty set on using round tube, but square would be so much easier. No bends!

you know to be honest i dont know what wall thickness we are using, we still havent figured out the best or" perfect weight to strength ratio yet so we keep dropping the wall thickness. are you wanting a full length rack or just a half rack? you can run a half rack lower cause it wont interfere with the moonroof/sunroof. if you are going with a half rack your only limitation to height is the feet/legs that attach it to the roof, or rails in our case. i think we made ours so you can get you hand under the rack to help tie stuff down to it, and so you can wash the roof without having to pull the rack of the truck. so you just want a deck basically then right? what kind of a flooring are you thinking just running bars across it or doing like an expanded metal flooring like mine?(that adds a fair amount of weight, but if you arent making it a basket then you are also saving weight there).

 

[Baja Runner]

Id say 1" .065 for the crossmembers and .030 for the sides would be more than enough for strength for DOM tube.

If you ever need to, I am a stress engineer and can run your design through Patran if you need.

Actually, running FEA on Solidworks is super easy and you can do optimization as well to minimize the tube diameter depending on the load you desire.

 

[matthinnant]

Blee1 has made a couple of simple roofracks he made the one on my 4runner and it works great you should shoot him a PM

 

[the great him]

Id say 1" .065 for the crossmembers and .030 for the sides would be more than enough for strength for DOM tube.

If you ever need to, I am a stress engineer and can run your design through Patran if you need.

Actually, running FEA on Solidworks is super easy and you can do optimization as well to minimize the tube diameter depending on the load you desire.

we might have to hit you up for that...

 

[Bandit Runner]

Some good ideas here. I am anxious to see what you come up with.

I plan on building a roof rack within the next year too. It will be very simple, and will not be a basket, but rails with cross bars. I'm thinking of something very similar to the X-terra roof racks, as I really like the looks of those. I just need something to put long items onto (kayaks, canoes, ladders, etc.)

I plan on using 1.25" diameter round tube with about .1" wall thickness. I don't have a tube bender, so all the corners will be mitered. I have a preliminary CAD model I can post later.

 

[jham]

you know to be honest i dont know what wall thickness we are using, we still havent figured out the best or" perfect weight to strength ratio yet so we keep dropping the wall thickness. are you wanting a full length rack or just a half rack? you can run a half rack lower cause it wont interfere with the moonroof/sunroof. if you are going with a half rack your only limitation to height is the feet/legs that attach it to the roof, or rails in our case. i think we made ours so you can get you hand under the rack to help tie stuff down to it, and so you can wash the roof without having to pull the rack of the truck. so you just want a deck basically then right? what kind of a flooring are you thinking just running bars across it or doing like an expanded metal flooring like mine?(that adds a fair amount of weight, but if you arent making it a basket then you are also saving weight there).

Dang, good points about the height. Didn't even think about washing!

Half rack. I'd like a full, but don't want to drill the roof for mounting points on the front of the cab.

Flooring will just be cross bars, and no sides. Will likely weld on some tie down points in a few key areas. Would love to build it from aluminum, but I'm not really worried about weight as I'm doing a half with no sides.

 

[jham]

Matthinnant, found pics of the one blee made you but only on the ground. Any of what it looks like mounted? What mounting style does it use? Custom feet?

 

[matthinnant]

Matthinnant, found pics of the one blee made you but only on the ground. Any of what it looks like mounted? What mounting style does it use? Custom feet?

Yea I will take some pics of it tomorrow I gotta repaint it a lil where it got scuffed up from shipping but I will make sure to take pics of the tabs for mounting.


THE 1st pic is the rear tabs and the 2nd pic is the front tabs hope this helps

 

[matthinnant]

tuesday bump

 

[the great him]

Yea I will take some pics of it tomorrow I gotta repaint it a lil where it got scuffed up from shipping but I will make sure to take pics of the tabs for mounting.


THE 1st pic is the rear tabs and the 2nd pic is the front tabs hope this helps

that is basically how we made our first racks feet, but the problem with that is that our racks are both curved/arched front-back and side-side so you have to get the angles just right or it doesnt fit properly and yeah you will bend crush your rails or tweak the roof. ours are set up with shoulder bolts and are on an axis so that they can have some "play" and will fit the natural curve of the roof

 

[matthinnant]

Well Blee1 made it off the replica of his for his 4runner but hopefully it wont tweak anything but if it does then I will def take your mod into consideration, I have to grind down the tabs a little because they are to wide for my rails.

 

[jham]

The kid, have any for sale? Pictures?