ROOF RACK PART 1
Been working on this for a few weeks now and I'm pretty much done as of tonight. Tomorrow I'll be attaching it to my Gamiviti gutter mounts. So next time you see it will be on the truck and loaded with gear! Inspiration for this rack came from Gamiviti and Corbet, so thanks to them for the ideas!
Wanted to keep this as cheap as possible so I had to get a little creative with a few things. I can't bring myself to spend $1k on a rack when they're easy to build if you're willing to put in the time. I wanted a flat platform rack, no sides, no basket as it has to fit in my garage. It needed to carry my 15' kayak, my storage totes and folding chairs, tents, backpacks etc. Basically put everything on the roof so I could put my 2nd row seats back in and be able to carry passengers.
Let's get started. I debated making the rack with square corners since it would be easiest (don't have a tube bender) but decided against it. Bought a few strips of 1" OD .120 wall tubing (a bit overkill I know) and had a shop bend up the 4 corners. Overall dimensions are about 84" long and 54" wide.
To join the pieces I spliced them with some 3/4" solid rod. Fit perfectly inside the .120 wall tubing
Drilled some holes for rosette welds
Used some scrap angle iron to keep everything square. With one set of hands, this was the most annoying part of the project.
Welded up!
Do your best and grind the rest!
The crossbars and mounting plates where pretty much just like the Gamiviti full length rack, except it would use 4 instead of 3 mounting plates like the one they sell. My research on Pirate said that to notch 1" tubing to fit against 1" tubing I'd need to cut them at a 20º angle on each side using a chop saw. I went with 22.5º and it was about right. This was NOT easy to do with a chop saw. If you were off just a bit you'd end up with an ugly ass notch. Oh well. I'm not building a precision race car here.
Welded!
The mounting plates are 11ga with the same dimensions as the ones sold by Gamiviti. Only difference is these cost me $9 in metal vs $125 for theirs

Used a bench grinder to shape the contour.
Tacked
And welded
Welds are getting better
And here's the final layout of the base frame
At this point the rack weighed in at about 67lbs. Final number was about 90lbs
Up next was the partial floor to hold six 8g Action Packer totes. This was built out of 16ga 5/8" square tubing. The other half of the rack will hold the kayak.