Homemade Roofracks.

[bulrid8]

Here's my first roof rack I've ever had and attempt at making one. Made it out of 1" conduit and the basket bottom is 3/4" conduit. Just bent it up with a hand bender and welded it using a Mig 110.

How has the conduit and welds held up under use?

Looking at this for light weight and cheaper.
Sent from the all knowing box!

 

[BrandonS]

It's only been on for a week or two so I can't attest for it's longevity yet. I have stood on it a few times and it doesn't seem to really flex much. I think the key is using the 1" conduit. The OD is around 1-1/8 and it's close to 16g. I don't believe 3/4" would be very sturdy for a larger rack or longer spans. For a shorter basket it may work well though. Once the galvanized finish was grinded off the conduit wasn't hard to weld at all.

 

[Every Miles A Memory]

For a first time build job, that's amazing looking! Kudo's to you!!

 

[EricM]

Long live the roof rack thread! Here is mine made of electrical conduit attached to the factory cross bars. This is on my jeep that went to Alaska and back. I have a different jeep now. My next one will be square tubing.

 

[Van_Homan]

Here's my first roof rack I've ever had and attempt at making one. Made it out of 1" conduit and the basket bottom is 3/4" conduit. Just bent it up with a hand bender and welded it using a Mig 110.

Your rack looks fantastic

 

[BrandonS]

Thanks for the compliments. It isn't perfect by a long shot but I think it looks alright and it'll carry a decent amount. My buddy and I can stand in the front basket and that's 400lbs and it seemed to do fine. I really just wanted the lights and to possibly add an RTT down the road.

I honestly only undertook this because of all the roof racks I've seen in this thread. I was a little apprehensive about trying to make my own, but figured if a bunch of others did it and they came out great no reason I couldn't at least try.

 

[RKraft]

BrandonS how are the lights while driving down highway do the whistle or noisy? I'm in process of making a roof rack for my 2000 Ford Excursion I'm also using conduit for material. Here are a couple picture of progress so far. This is just the bottom or base of rack then will go up 6" to another double hoop. Size is 53" wide by 108" long inside measurements.

 

[RKraft]

Not the best pictures and bends are off a slight bit from one an other but it will work just fine for me and my needs. My garage/ work space is a mess so sorry for the clutter in pictures. I am excited to get it done and on but ran out of gas for welder hopefully this weekend it will be closer to being complete.
Randy

 

[BrandonS]

Randy,
Your rack looks to be coming along nicely! The rack really isn't very loud at all unless I open the sunroof or I'm driving freeway speeds into 20mph winds. I don't know if the air scoop has anything to do with that or not. The biggest issue with the lights was the glare on the windshield they created. When the lights were on it would illuminate the windshield and make it hard to see, especially when there was dust on the windshield.

You can do a few things with your design to fix this like mount the lights farther back so the roof shrouds the windshield in a shadow or put them "ahead" of the windshield Baja truck style. In the end I used left over Plexiglas and a heat gun to make glare shields. I use Velcro to fasten them. They should be fine at lower of road nighttime speeds.

 

[RKraft]

Thank you, they will be about 1' or so behind windshield and my Excursion has a lund sun visor on it. That's good to know about wind noise your roof rack looks good.
Randy

 

[RKraft]

Finally got yhe main part of roof rack welded up today, ran out of gas again for welder. Guess I am going to have to get bigger bottle , I was debating on getting bigger bottle when I had this 1 filled thinking I would have enough guess not. Just need to make a bracket for lights and then legs to attach to roof.

Randy

 

[RKraft]

Here is a picture of the main rack all welded up.
Randy

 

[RKraft]

Sorry wrong picture
Randy

 

[Vegasrandall]

that looks stout enough to tote a dead moose! nice job.

 

[RKraft]

Thank you, it is amazing how strong the 1/2" conduit really is & not to heavy either. Now I just need to figure out which lights to run up top. My wife was kind of worried when I told her I was going to build it. She was thinking worse like something was going to happen, I might have to tell her stop watching the Walking Dead . I actually want it for hunting & camping. The size is big enough to put full sheet of 4'x8' plywood in it.
Randy