Any of you legends with a 62 (or 61 in the US?) high top cruiser will be aware that getting a nice looking roof rack is a challenge.
I decided to make a rack that's as low profile as possible (only adds 50mm/2" to the roof height!) while also utilizing the wasted space up the front where the roof drops down.
Got the steel, bought it all cut to length - worth every penny! I pay $0.18 per cut from the steel shop, and saves me so much time. ~1mm accuracy, plenty accurate for this.
Laying out the frame, went for 2000x1400 - fits most of the truck, but would have gone a bit longer if I'd do it again. Maybe 2250 or so long. Wanted to do angley bits on the corners for looks / avoiding catching branches, wasnt too fidly, even just using a grinder
Starting to make the underside, and the welders in the background. I did this 99% with the TIG to save on grinding, and TIG is just more fun...
most angles are just roughed in and then filled with a nice fat TIG bead. These were the only one's I actually used my carpenters square to shoot for 22.5 degrees each to make up a 45.
You can kinda start to see what I'm going for with the angled cage part... (rack is upside down in this pic) and you can see I've added on the two mounts that I cut off my old TRADESMAN roof rack that came with the truck. The cross members lined up perfectly with mine (I spaced mine using a random off cut of plywood - so pure luck on that one!)
The front mount points welded on, I fit it up with the back mounts only, and then cut these to fit and tacked them in place on the truck. Then took it off to weld it out
I decided to insert long M8 nuts (nut couplers) into the tube, and welded it out top and bottom. Then I ran out of argon for the TIG, and did it with the MIG... I think they are on there pretty good, but I dont trust them as much as I wanted to be able to. The plan is to add some bolt on side rails if needed, but still be able to remove them for fitting into car parks. Or bolt on a canopy or whatever else I need to bolt up there!
Priming up the front for extra durability - old TRADESMAN rack in the back. I also went back through just before this and put a fat MIG weld on each internal corner to reinforce the pretty TIG beads on top and bottoms of the cross pieces. Better to over engineer than under!
A quick rattle can job (who can afford powder coating?!) and I think it looks great. Adding 4 or 6 4" spotlights to the front soon. I love the low profile functionality, and the look of utilising that front section. I'm not sure what I'll put in there... but its a bit of bonus space.
Only 50mm higher than the roof
And there you have it! My solution to the weird slanted roof, hope this helps someone bite the bullet on building a rack themselves! Total cost is under $150 including paint and consumables.
Snorkel arriving in the post tomorrow (seriously! $75 on ebay shipped for a knock off safari! So cheap
I decided to make a rack that's as low profile as possible (only adds 50mm/2" to the roof height!) while also utilizing the wasted space up the front where the roof drops down.
Got the steel, bought it all cut to length - worth every penny! I pay $0.18 per cut from the steel shop, and saves me so much time. ~1mm accuracy, plenty accurate for this.
Laying out the frame, went for 2000x1400 - fits most of the truck, but would have gone a bit longer if I'd do it again. Maybe 2250 or so long. Wanted to do angley bits on the corners for looks / avoiding catching branches, wasnt too fidly, even just using a grinder
Starting to make the underside, and the welders in the background. I did this 99% with the TIG to save on grinding, and TIG is just more fun...
most angles are just roughed in and then filled with a nice fat TIG bead. These were the only one's I actually used my carpenters square to shoot for 22.5 degrees each to make up a 45.
You can kinda start to see what I'm going for with the angled cage part... (rack is upside down in this pic) and you can see I've added on the two mounts that I cut off my old TRADESMAN roof rack that came with the truck. The cross members lined up perfectly with mine (I spaced mine using a random off cut of plywood - so pure luck on that one!)
The front mount points welded on, I fit it up with the back mounts only, and then cut these to fit and tacked them in place on the truck. Then took it off to weld it out
I decided to insert long M8 nuts (nut couplers) into the tube, and welded it out top and bottom. Then I ran out of argon for the TIG, and did it with the MIG... I think they are on there pretty good, but I dont trust them as much as I wanted to be able to. The plan is to add some bolt on side rails if needed, but still be able to remove them for fitting into car parks. Or bolt on a canopy or whatever else I need to bolt up there!
Priming up the front for extra durability - old TRADESMAN rack in the back. I also went back through just before this and put a fat MIG weld on each internal corner to reinforce the pretty TIG beads on top and bottoms of the cross pieces. Better to over engineer than under!
A quick rattle can job (who can afford powder coating?!) and I think it looks great. Adding 4 or 6 4" spotlights to the front soon. I love the low profile functionality, and the look of utilising that front section. I'm not sure what I'll put in there... but its a bit of bonus space.
Only 50mm higher than the roof
And there you have it! My solution to the weird slanted roof, hope this helps someone bite the bullet on building a rack themselves! Total cost is under $150 including paint and consumables.
Snorkel arriving in the post tomorrow (seriously! $75 on ebay shipped for a knock off safari! So cheap
