DIY Roof bars

[adubya]

Recently picked up a camper shell to put on my 2006 Silverado. It came with Yakima rails and I would like to mount my rooftop tent on it but after looking at the prices to buy the Yakima towers, crossbars, landing pads and locks it's going to end up being close to $500. Has anyone built anything to adapt to the rails that's more inexpensive? I've got the tools and everything to build what needs to be built. I just need ideas.


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[rnArmy]

You could possibly try some Surco Crossbars:

http://www.surcoinc.com/Roof/Crossbars/Safari_Crossbars.html

And their channel adapters:

http://www.surcoinc.com/Roof/Mounting_Accessories/Channel_Adapters.html

All this would run you around $175 or so (check Amazon for prices). I'm guessing the channel adapters would work in the Yakima rails, but you'd have to check (I'm going on the assumption the rails you're talking about are the flat rails with a groove down the center). And I don't know the weight limits for the Surco channel adapters.
And if your truck's topper is perfectly flat, you could get two sets of the channel adapters (eight total) and have four crossbars under your RTT. That would run you about $130 (plus the cost of some square or rectangle tubing to use as crossbars).

On those Surco channel adapters, you could probably just bolt some square/rectangle tubing to the tops of them, or some strong channel.

All these mounts do, is take the square pieces of metal (with a threaded hole in the center) that slide in the groove of the track, and the adapters bolt onto them via the threaded holes. And then the crossbar mounts on top (see picture below). You could use this concept to fabricate your own crossbar mounts. Get a 16" section of steel strap narrow enough to slide through the rails (and just tall enough to fit in the groove, cut them to 4" in length, drill and tap two 1/4 or 5/16" holes at either end, and make a mount similar to what's linked to above in the picture, and connect the two sides with square/rectangle/or channel.

 

[NatersXJ6]

I don't know much about the specifics of Yakima rails, but lots of rooftop tents, including mine, are mounted on custom length unistrut, aka electrical conduit strut. I think I used a 10' stick from home depot, a rattle can of black, and some various ubolts and other hardware.

 

[e60ral]

I don't know much about the specifics of Yakima rails, but lots of rooftop tents, including mine, are mounted on custom length unistrut, aka electrical conduit strut. I think I used a 10' stick from home depot, a rattle can of black, and some various ubolts and other hardware.

instead of unistrut, check out 8020 extrusions https://www.8020.net/ (it's what those aluminum racks like frontrunner and k9 are made from)

 

[e60ral]

not that exact brand but its basically the same stuff; the K9 rack looks similar to a 1030 profile and frontrunner looks similar to 1020 just with a single slot

I think Prinsu actually uses 80/20 brand 1020 profile for their crossbars

 

[ruadhrigh]

View attachment 398905

You could possibly try some Surco Crossbars:

This is a really cool find. Have you used any of the Surco products?

 

[herm]

i used aluminum tube and fittings from mcmaster carr to build a basket. they lots of shapes other than tubes. https://www.mcmaster.com/#aluminum-tube-fittings/=1anogz7