Custom Roof Rack Mounts

[pjmjr508]

I took another look at the roof rails in relation to what I wanted to do, and realize that they are not close enough width wise to forgo the cross bars & attach the rack directly to the roof rails. so the unitstock will have to work to lower. great model of what you want to have made.

[Matt]

Here's a side view. Rack height was 6" OC and the angle for the front was around 37 degrees and the rear was 70 degrees.



lol if i had a a tube bender, welder and some welding skills i'd probably be out there making it.

[pjmjr508]

looks great. will be nice to see once you have it made & attached.

[IamJEEP]

Sure. It's pretty standard though... pretty much made it 4'x6' (tapered the rear back to 46"), then adjusted the size of the top until the angles of the front and rear looked appealing.

Thank you, can't wait to see this actually made. This is going to be a nice rack, now just add some attachment tabs. LOL...

[Doc in AZ]

I'll tell you anything you want to know about the rack, but you'll have to spend a minimum of about $ 600 to get a decent Bender and tooling to get started. And I'll say it again, youare putting wayyyyyyyyy too much effort into the rack design.

And I've got to say this is my favorite quote

Thats a cool tool you have there...

[Matt]

Doc, make no mistake... you're building me a rack!

Working on some of those mounts you talked about now to get an idea if I can machine them without spending big coin on some fancy bits.

Edit: and im only putting as much effort in as I want to. Some people watch a lot of TV, others my age play hours upon hours of video games..... me? well, i like designing/fixing/solving/etc. This is my hobby.

[IamJEEP]

I'll tell you anything you want to know about the rack, but you'll have to spend a minimum of about $ 600 to get a decent Bender and tooling to get started. And I'll say it again, youare putting wayyyyyyyyy too much effort into the rack design.

And I've got to say this is my favorite quote

Why thank you sir......this won't be the first time i have been quoted...LOL

[Sal-XK]

Why thank you sir......this won't be the first time i have been quoted...LOL

Well, you have to be good at something LOL

[IamJEEP]

Well, you have to be good at something LOL

LOL, that's right!

[Matt]

Newest concept.

Would require that the rack width follow width of the OEM rails (within reason). Not sure if this is exactly what Doc was envisioning.... but when he recommended making a mount that the rack would sit on and clamp directly to, this is what I pictured.

Still needs a few tweaks......... and i'd incorporate some spherical washers to account for the angle created by the clamp (spherical washers may also be a good solution for the clamping plate beneath the roof rail)

This one just shows how the edge of the rack would have to follow the roof rail line (so the rack would taper towards the rear just like the roof)



Front view just showing the position. I'd probably make the clamping slot a bit wider to account for variations in width. For ease of assembly, i simply aligned the axis of the roof rack tube and the axis of the radius in the clamp. Obviously, they will not match up perfectly like that on the real thing.



And two projections to get an idea of what they'd look like... Still needs a few aesthetic tweaks... but this gets the point across.