berrendo114

Hello all,
I have a 91 xcab V6 with regular bed; no bed liner, just the standard u-shaped bolts on the inside of the bed. I'm about to buy a 12' sit on top kayak (weight about 70 pounds), and am exploring my options for transporting it on some kind of rack, so not to take up bed space. I've seen some racks online, but they don't seem to be adapted to older truck beds. The ones that seem ideal mount on just one side of the bed, but again, made for truck rails. Also, one model I saw claimed it wasn't for "unimproved roads." That wouldn't work!

I take my pickup to remote coastlines in Sonora and Baja, MX, on rough 4wd roads-- can anyone recommend a kayak carrying option, hopefully without permanent rack installation?

Muchas gracias!

(Attached = photo from old river inflatable kayak towards Toyota on shore; inflatables are a lot easier to transport, but a little slow in the sea.)

Redeyejedi

check at bigwatersedge.com lot's of kayak fisherman there

you can try to find thule/yakima load bars and build feet for them to attach to bed rails. or tow hitch option. or try typing kayak rack pickup in google, then hit images to get some ideas.
good luck, post up what you end up rolling with.

JohnnyCanuck

I haul my 17' and my wifes 14' on my truck. I've used styrofoam blocks on the roof and tailgate, beat it down some FSR's and never had an issue. You can get some nice racks - we use 2 sets of Thule racks on my wifes Forester that fold down when not in use - and I've also hauled the kayaks on my truck with my canopy on.

Grego92

iTrader: (4)

Used an earlier model of one of these setups for a few years. Never took it off-road though. If you put straps on either end of the bar tied down the bumper it increases stability.



Other way is to buy a shell and attach the rack system to that, or some soft tops allow for rack systems to be attached.

wavekayaker

With the extended cab you should have enough crossbar spread with a Thule or Yakima rack to have no problems with a 14' boat on the roof alone. It could be a little awkward lifting that weight to the racks, but it's doable.

On an old 85 2wd drive I had I used one crossbar over the cab ( old Yakima CSST) and bolted an aluminum upright (like an upside down U) through the inside bed panels. That gave me a large spread between bars. I carried many kayaks on that.

berrendo114

Thanks for replies, I think the Thule goalpost rack on the hitch and another rack on the xcab roof will be a good solution.

hoghead420

I had a truck cap on the back and a ladder rack that went around the cap, I could haul 9 , 9 foot kayaks. Maybe more , we had 9 boats total. 5 in the bed with tailgate down and 4 up on the ladder rack with tie straps .. it was pretty fun. If you could get a cheap ladder rack, that's the route id go, usually you end up with friends that wanna go. With a ladder rack you could add more boats if needed. I sold that ladder rack for 150 on Craigslist. Paid a lot more for it new. And with a rack, you could put a lot of stuff up top if you need to use it for something else. Id hate to see ya pay for a cargo system, then find out for another 50 bucks you could have many more options .. whatever you do, have fun on the yack.