i'm designing it on cad right now, its fit to mount on the existing roof rack rails.

 

neat. give me one, ill do some r&d for you

 

Ill do R&D too...that is if its free

Plus itd have to be tiny so I can fit into my garage...

 

i can take care of the r&d, but if it turns out to be good and i have managed to plan ahead for all issues i will gladly give out the designs to folks to try and copy. the front has a spot for lights its about 37"wide where it mounts 39" overall, 59" long, so the light spot on the front would be about 6" past the existing roof rack. I like the design i gotta figure out what it will weigh with what style framing.

 

once you finalize the design, if you wouldnt mind, i would like a copy of the drawings. ive been thinking of trying my hand at making a basket/safari rack. just send them to my addy in my profile. thanks in advance!

lee

 

remeber that roofs arent rated t oactually carry much weight.... my ford explorer had warnings on it that said dont exceed 100 # of cargo...... if you have a 70# basket up there and a hi lift jack, you are already pushing the limits.......

however my truck was strong enough for me to stand on and sit on.. and i weigh 250... so i dotn get that....

 

I beleave thats so you dont make the truck to top heavy and mess up the center of gravity. please correct me if im wrong

 

well thats aprtially true, but realistically roof arent very strong at all... there outer edge structure is strong, however over the framing there is just light sheet metal in place.....

 

good points. i guess for offroad it would be handy but on roads top heavy is not cool. hmm okay. i went an looked at 3/4 square steel but had no way to weigh it. it was a 3ft section i'd guess 4-5 lbs that design there has at least 85ft of framing, so i am cutting out a couple things to keep it around 50-60ft of steel used. man i wish i could weld aluminium its so light. maybe i'll focus on something more handy like sliders. i'm still gonna make a rack, but all these points are handy in tweaking the design. thanks

 

Aluminium...I'd buy one.

 

If somebody would make an aluminum full-length "safari" rack for 4Runners just like the ones made by Hannibal (hannibalusa.com), I think there would be a market for it (at least I would buy one). Although some people might be turned off by the thought of drilling into their roof, which would be required to mount the rack. Hannibal does not make a rack that fits the 4Runners. They make one for the Range Rover 4.0 and 4.6 HSEs that you have to drill into the roof. I have always wanted to see if I could modify it to fit my 4Runner, but I'm sure the gutters are wider apart on the RRs than the 4Runner so the mounts would be off.

 

Kinda looks like the one I made. Only smaller. (But than again I only have HALF a roof now.)

 

Is that steel? Have you had any leaks? Did you just drill into the thin sheet on the roof or something thicker on the frame?

 

Steel YES. Leaks NO (I caulked under the plates and around them)

Yes I drilled threw the roof. Than put those plates in PIC #2 above, Both on top and Inside to spead the weight out.

I've stood in my roof rack. I've even sun tanned in there a couple of times.

ANy other questions ?

 

According to this handy little book I have, 3/4" square tubing with 1/16th of an inch wall thickness(0.065) weighs 0.605 lbs per foot. 0.120-wall(not quite an 1/8th) weighs 1.03 lbs per foot. I made some bed-rails for a buddy out 1/16th tubing and it was plenty strong...

 

thanks for the weight info, 4HUMMER - your rack is what spurred my intrest. does the truck feel very top heavy now? also how much does your rack weigh?

 

Rack weighs maybe 50-60 pounds max. And no the truck doesn't feel top heavy at all. I forget its even there most of the time. But its SUPER Strong.

I went with square tubbing to build the rack, as Im not that great with a bender (YET.. working on this) All the corners are 45 degree cuts and than just welded together (And grinded down) This makes it SIMPLE to build and very strong.

If your not too keen on attaching the rack threw the roof. you can get Gutterless mounts (Like they use for the light bars) and weld the rack to that instead (We built this exact rack for a buddy of my with a Camper van and thats how we mounted it... I think the gutterless mounts we $45 bucks a pair)

Hope this helps.

 

sure does, yeah thats my plan. I am gonna see how tough the factory roof rack rails are and then decide on a final way to mount it. I plan on mine being in the 50-60 lbs range now maybe a little less. i wish the picture came out better, i like the light mount part best, it copys a exspensive landrover rack with the 45" bars comming down on the light section. looks cool too.

 

When you turned over did you have grill marks like a burger king hamburger

 

NO.