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My original plan was to take a length of 80/20 extrusion and mount between two cleats. But the bed forming sticks further out than the cleats, and the extrusion can't sit flush. Booo....
So Plan B was to take short lengths of extrusion and mount individually to each cleat. Similar to some folks posting earlier just bolting the fork mounts directly to the cleats. First issue was that the center of the cleat body sits higher than the eras of the cleat, so ground down and touched up the missing paint. Everything else went pretty smooth, and the end result looks good. However, once the bike is loaded up, the cleat has a lot of back and forth play during acceleration/deceleration/general road conditions. Since the cast aluminum cleat is just snapped into the plastic faceplate of the boxlink, I'm concerned that over time the cleat might break free from the torsional forces on the plastic faceplate. Has anyone else with this type of direct mount had any issues/concerns about this?
My original plan was to take a length of 80/20 extrusion and mount between two cleats. But the bed forming sticks further out than the cleats, and the extrusion can't sit flush. Booo....
So Plan B was to take short lengths of extrusion and mount individually to each cleat. Similar to some folks posting earlier just bolting the fork mounts directly to the cleats. First issue was that the center of the cleat body sits higher than the eras of the cleat, so ground down and touched up the missing paint. Everything else went pretty smooth, and the end result looks good. However, once the bike is loaded up, the cleat has a lot of back and forth play during acceleration/deceleration/general road conditions. Since the cast aluminum cleat is just snapped into the plastic faceplate of the boxlink, I'm concerned that over time the cleat might break free from the torsional forces on the plastic faceplate. Has anyone else with this type of direct mount had any issues/concerns about this?
Otherwise, time for Plan C....
I tried this. However with the bike on it I had the same play in the mount as you did. The handlebars on my bike would have bounced off the cab while driving. That's why I went with the steel bar connecting the two.
My original plan was to take a length of 80/20 extrusion and mount between two cleats. But the bed forming sticks further out than the cleats, and the extrusion can't sit flush. Booo....
So Plan B was to take short lengths of extrusion and mount individually to each cleat. Similar to some folks posting earlier just bolting the fork mounts directly to the cleats. First issue was that the center of the cleat body sits higher than the eras of the cleat, so ground down and touched up the missing paint. Everything else went pretty smooth, and the end result looks good. However, once the bike is loaded up, the cleat has a lot of back and forth play during acceleration/deceleration/general road conditions. Since the cast aluminum cleat is just snapped into the plastic faceplate of the boxlink, I'm concerned that over time the cleat might break free from the torsional forces on the plastic faceplate. Has anyone else with this type of direct mount had any issues/concerns about this?
Otherwise, time for Plan C....
Since your doing them that way we could always swap cleats back.
Right on Cobi. Yah I'm right there with you. I want to add something else for long trips also. I'm always super paranoid about leaving my bike in the bed unlocked. I just put the shuttle pad on when I need to use it, its super convenient to load and unload bikes and I can get 4 bikes across without anyone's getting scratched up.
Seems like the Tacoma community has alot more small fab companies making cool stuff. I wish we had someone that would make a piece that ties across the box link cleats like one of these
Here is my version of bed mounted bike rack. I made an adapter that goes to the boxlink adapter and uses a slightly modified Thule hitch mounted rack. The whole setup locks in place with all the regular locks and can fold flat under my bed cover when not in use.
I'm lazy and don't like taking off my tire to load my bike and this setup had been working well for me for the last few months.
Here's what I finally ended up putting together, mounts to my front stake pocket BullRings. 6' length of 80/20 extrusion with two 80/20 angle brackets, two Yakima locking fork mounts, tamper-resistant mounting hardware, and a couple of end caps for looks. Solid, secure, and good looking.
06-20-2017, 01:46 PM
