Home made rack , and yes with curvy bits !

[UK4X4]

After looking around locally here for a rack, I had the choice of chinese aluminum in various forms

and a decent ARB from Dubai...for $ 1000 and a 9hr round trip

Being handy and having a few tools I decided to embark of making my own

Inspiration for the design I think is pretty obvious..

Probably 20 hrs of work in it

I have autocad dwgs of the rough design, like many things designs change when you have steel in your hands, if you want it, PM me your e-mail

Ingredients

4 lengths of 25mm electrical conduit
2 lengths of 38mm electrical conduit
4 off 25mm rounded bends
4 off 38mm rounded bends
2 off cans of matt black
3 meters of 2" X 4mm flat bar
2 meters of 1" X 3mm flat bar
2 meters of 2" x 1" angle
1 off old truck inner tube

Equipment required

work horses
hobart 140 welder
angle grinder
hacksaw
tape measure
beer fridge and contents

Cost was about $200 inc stainless fittings and nylocks

Inner tube was glued to the stands and keeper to protect the paint, and a gasket between the basket and the mounts, to take up vibes and twists during manufacture.

Doing the round corners took longer than just square but the aethetics I'm very happy with.

I could'nt get both sizes of bend with the same radius, front can't really be seen, but the rear I had to step in the upper rail by 1/2" to get the corners to align.

Its all zinc galvanised tubing reasonably light weight.

Even though a rack looks quite simple there's a lot of welding to put it all together.

 

[HenryJ]

Beautiful! Nice work!

 

[dustboy]

Very well done!!

 

[ExpoMike]

Good job. Looks good.

 

[UK4X4]

Thanks, its nice to have your work apreciated ...

the wifes "that's love'ly can we go shopping now" does'nt quite hit the spot !

 

[JeepN95YJ]

Thanks, its nice to have your work apreciated ...

the wifes "that's love'ly can we go shopping now" does'nt quite hit the spot !

LOL!... I alway feel the same way. Wife "pretends" to understand why I'm excited but I know she doesn't get it.:sombrero:

I like the way you used electrical conduit. I've thought of using the same thing and if I can get off my lazy behind, I might actually accomplish it. Really nice job.

 

[BIGdaddy]

I like it. whats the approx. weight?

 

[UK4X4]

weight, not really sure, I can lift it alone,

but mounting took two, one either side....

lighter than if i'd have used standard steel !!!

probably lighter than my old full length wilderness rack I had on my disco

wall thickness is less on the conduit, its 1800mm long by 1250 wide.

with the milage my patrol gets another 50lbs is not going to make any diference !!!

 

[08whitex]

That looks really good. I made my rack out of conduit also.

 

[snipecatcher]

That's beautiful, man. I think I am going to dabble in aluminum for my next rack. In the end, was it worth it for you to buy the pre-bent pipe, or do you think you could have done ok with a pipe bender? I've been thinking about this. I did ok with my current steel rack using a Harbor Freight pipe bender, but if I'm not careful, I can really mangle the bends. I may just buy pre bent aluminum and weld everything together. Enlighten me.
-Dan

 

[UK4X4]

I used pre bent as there is no where here to get a pipe bender from !

My friend Ian and his troopy asked for curves when he had his made locally
so the shop cut out about ten little V's bent the tubing and then welded it back up.

So really can't comment, the pre bent ones I used were threaded so 1/2 the joins are threaded in then welded.

On the others I used a cone cut and drilled out the thread to 1/2"deep.

So there were no butt welds, each join was slotted into slightly wider corners.

The flat bar uprights were positioned next to the tubing transitions to lesten the visual aspects

 

[saburai]

Good job!

Very nice! You can be proud to say that you built it:ylsmoke: