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Today's progress. Before the thunderstorm rolled in and the power went out.



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Bretthn said:
Great progress today! Hope to see it mounted next week.
Do you plan to paint or powder coat?
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Yeah i was going strong then the thunderstorm came from no where and I had to stop. Hopefully i can do some more work on it tomorrow.

I think I will just spray some paint on it. Do you know anywhere here in GSO that does powder coating. Might be interesting to get a quote at least.
 
Ok so the basic rack is completed. I'm goin to add som more tabs for light and mount a solar panel later on. Weight is about 75lbs so not to bad.

I started working on the mounts today as well. Hopefully it will be on the truck by next weekend.


Your welds sucks she said and took the welder out of my hands....
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Final result.


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I spent a couple of hours on the roof mounts today. Or the base of the roof mounts I should say. They came out sturdy and pretty good. I designed them so they can use the original seals. Slow progress working on the mounts. At least I got the the base for all three mounts on the left side done and I cut out the pieces needed for the right side. I'll finish up the right side on Wednesday hopefully... and then do the actual mounting fixtures on Thursday/Friday so I can test the rack this weekend. Or at least that's the plan.

Here are some pictures.

Front/mid and rear base

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Front left base

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Left side. They came out very sturdy. Should easily handle the weight I'm going to put up on the rack.

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//Marten

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Awesome - I have a sneaky feeling that she is going to commandeer this vehicle!

I'm tempted to try and pick up welding - I think I'll get a techshop membership and try their equipment out.
 
kashmir said:
Awesome - I have a sneaky feeling that she is going to commandeer this vehicle!

I'm tempted to try and pick up welding - I think I'll get a techshop membership and try their equipment out.
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LOL yep your absolutly right. She is the captain that is for sure. :)

Yeah you should pick up welding. It's not really that hard. I would recommend you look at youtube videos. Get yourself a welder and just go at it. I am by no means a pro at welding and my welds might not be the pretties once around. But they are strong and they do the job.

I just got a cheap 180amp welder from Harbour freight tools. Didnt have very high expectations but is actually pretty good. Maybe not as good as a welder in the $700-900 price range but it is good enough for the types of jobs that I will do. And as long as you have a 220V outlet and a 50amp breaker you will get all the juice you will ever need to melt thru thick steel plates.
 
Roof rack Mounting brackets

So I spent a couple of more hours cutting and welding to get the mounts done. The 2 front mounts are welded together and the 2 rear are tacked up. I will do the 2 center mounts this afternoon and then clean them up and drill holes for the rack. They came out sturdy as heck and you would have to place an elephant up there to bend them.

Will hopefully have everything cleaned up and painted by this weekend and I will post some pictures then.


//Marten
 
I finally got the roof rack mounted to the truck. I threw the RTT on there and the LED light bar as well. The wife approves.


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Tomorrow we will test it on a weekend expedition to the Appalachians.

//Marten

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Bretthn said:
That is some serious light output. Looks good.

Where did you end up camping Saturday night?
Matt got some good pictures of your truck.
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Yeah it hurts your eyes looking straight in to that thing :cheers:

We stayed at one of the many campsites in Old NC 105 that you recommended. Really nice area. It had been raining a lot and in some parts the road was washed out pretty badly. It was very foggy and rainy but still nice.

I saw some of his pictures. Want to see more picture of me going thru the creek :)
 
A few friends from Expedition portal and I was out for a trip this weekend where I got to test the rack which worked just fine. It was a tight squeeze in some areas. And since the GX is rather high I slammed into pretty much every branch in the forrest so I am glad I built it sturdy to handle the abuse.

You can see some pictures from our trip here:

http://www.expeditionportal.com/for...reet-August-17th-is-go!?p=1411119#post1411119

//Marten
 
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Light bars are the way to go. I used a relay and wired mine to the factory fog light on the tree and used a Toyota button for my fogs in the bumper. LOVE my light bar. Night to day bright!
 
DanKunz said:
Light bars are the way to go. I used a relay and wired mine to the factory fog light on the tree and used a Toyota button for my fogs in the bumper. LOVE my light bar. Night to day bright!
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I tried to plug them in and have them controlled by a switch and the high beam but that switched ground was to much of a pain in the ....

So now I have an isolated electrical system and only control them with the switch on my center console. Works great.
 
Yep, saw your switch setup and get it. I didn't see all those switches on ebay so I went a different way :)

Love the build. Let me know when you get this way for a ride, will try to meet up and compare notes!
 
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