Building a roof rack

[JeepinPete]

As a member of the low end of the budget scale in the FJ80 world, I am making a roof rack rather than buying one of the many excellent racks out there. I would have loved to get in on the Prinsu rack, but even with the discount, it was too rich for my blood.

With that out of the way, here is my plan. I am starting off with a set of Yakima gutter mounts and bars. Found the mounts locally for $20 with frozen stubs of bolts. An hours worth of work and the frozen bolts are out and the mounts and bars are on the truck.

The basket is going to be made of 1" EMT conduit. Length will be dictated by the width of the basket, as I am using 10' sections. As it works out, the basket is 52" wide, and 76" long. Plan on running floor bars every 6" oriented fore to aft.

Question for the masses, how high to make the sides? I'm thinking low, maybe 3". Anything I put up there will be strapped, so I do not see the need for more, but I would love some input and opinions.

 

[JeepinPete]

Got started this morning, between the rain showers. 10 pieces of conduit from Home Depot:

The two rims will each be made of two pieces of conduit. I do not want to but weld the tubes. As it turns out, 3/4" couplers fit nice and tight in 1". $62 for the tubes, $2.50 for the couplers.

The instructions for the bender are straight forward, so I will not go into that here. I bend up the first two and put them together:

If you noticed in the prior picture, the couplers and intended to go on the outside of the tube. There are two screws on the coupler. Those are removed, and the bosses were filed off. Here is a close up of it inside the 1":

 

[Webster77]

Good start...

 

[97 greenmonster]

I see your in Pa, Pittsburgh area here.

 

[JeepinPete]

North of Philly here.

Inside for a bit to cool down and dry out. Next step was the floor tubes. I notched the tubes to fit nicely for welding. Using an old (1910ish) horizontal mill I picked up many years ago. It is perfect for this kind of thing.



Tubes in place:

Close up of the notch:

I start on the uprights later today. Figure on welding it during the week after work.

 

[JeepinPete]

Finished cutting all of the tubes. Most are notched, but the five up front need to be finished up with a grinder.

 

[chap79]

Looks good. Any plans to cover the bottom with expanded steel or just leave it as is?

 

[JeepinPete]

Plan to leave it as is. I'm taking a trip later this year, everything that is going up top will be contained in sealed totes. So no need for a floor. Easy enough to add later if this doesn't work out.

 

[Sambosuda]

That's still gonna sit way tall due to the yak cross bars.

You going to paint it?

 

[JeepinPete]

Yes, it will be painted. Yes, it will sit taller than I would like due to the towers. I'm in a bit of a time crunch, so for now it is what it is.

 

[Rifleman]

Just as an FYI in case you don't know, before you weld that frame together make SURE that you grind that zinc plating off those tubes. Trying to weld with that zinc in place will cause poor weld quality, like porosity in your welds. Plus the presence of zinc in your welds can cause them to crack. Let's not forget about the health problems from breathing zinc fumes from welding too.

 

[JeepinPete]

Thanks for the warning. I am well aware of the fun of welding zinc . Welding will be done outdoors. I'll practice on the left overs, still not certain whether to use flux core or solid wire with gas.

 

[Schmutz]

@JeepinPete looks good! If you ever want to switch to different mounting system (down the road when you can spare two Benjamins), I can highly recommend the Gamiviti towers. I welded up my own rack too and used 6 of those. How are you going to attach your kayaks & canoes?

 

[milemarker60]

I bought my 6 mounts from TrailTailor to use on my son's build. I think I had about $140 in them shipped. Welded some 1/4" plate in the mount locations on the rack. Couldn't have engineered and built much cheaper.

 

[baldilocks]

Nice looking rack and I like the outside the box approach for saving money. I also built my own rack and because of the point you made early on, that the cargo will be tied down, I, like many, opted to leave my rack flat. I have no problems keeping my stuff up there on tough trails.
Thus far, I have mounted my rack at top two load bars also. I will be going to the Gamiviti 30/60 gutter mounts because I feel that two Yakima's are marginal strength wise as the part that fits into the gutter is rather thin. I have tweeked mine a couple times.

 

[JeepinPete]

Kayaks will not be going on top. Too much of a pain in the arse. When we go to the lake, they go on my utility trailer, which the rack is currently sitting on. I added a longer tongue to the trailer to handle the kayaks.

We are taking a two week trip up to Maine at the end of the month. Hauling a pop up camper. I will be adding a rack to that to handle the kayaks.

I've got some ideas for mounts, but that may come at a later time. For now I figure the Yakima parts will be fine, and I would want to pull the factory rack off before committing to any gutter mount.

 

[sea bass]

Nice rack looks almost identical to mine I built myself I left a cut out for the sunroof and added fj80 on the side

 

[sea bass]

Made my own gutter mounts

 

[sea bass]

Here's a better pic.

 

[sea bass]

When you decide to paint it Lowe's sells quarts of oil based enamel it says it is made for doors ,I put it on real thick with a spray gun it is far harder than any other paint or even powder coating I've ever delt with,it's messy because it's oil based but it's on forever