HaydenConQueso

So, ever since I purchased my truck a few months back, I've really missed use of a roof rack. I finally said enough was enough and decided to go ahead a build one, but instead of just simple crossbars, I went ahead and made a full size safari rack. Let my first bit of fabrication begin!

I had looked at buying racks for awhile and what it would cost, how well it would function, etc. etc. but after some careful consideration I figured it would be much cheaper to just buy raw material and build the damn thing myself. I used about 6, 10ft sticks of 3/4 inch EMT, one 10 ft piece of unistrut, 8 rattle cans of primer/flat black, an 8ft x 4ft piece of expanded metal and various pieces of other hardware.





The dimensions measured to be 6 feet by 40 inches, and 4 inches tall. pretty damn big.





This was our tube notching setup. Pretty cheap and efficient. Used a router to cut a groove in a 2x4, clamped it to my fathers drill press, used a 1 inch bi-metal hole saw...bam tube notcher.





closer look...





It worked pretty decent, especially for what I needed out of it.





After the upper and lower hoops were welded together, the notched pieces were tacked in.





and looked something like this.





Not the best welds, but it'll do





After all the supporting structure was welded together it was time for the expanded metal to be placed into the rack.





lots of snipping to size here.





And now it's seen here all welded together.





Size comparison. I'm 6'2"





mounting the unistrut to the roof was probably the most difficult task. Placement was crucial and done well.





Here's a closer look.





and a fancy perspective shot.





This is the bolt/washer assembly.





So from the cab to the outside it goes nut, small washer, big washer, cab, rubber washer, unistrut, small washer, lock washer, 3/4 nut.





And these are the clamps used to mount the EMT to the unistrut. I wish I would have used nuts instead of clamps, but live and learn.





And finally here she is mounted on the roof.





Boom.