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Custom Fabrication DepartmentThis is the section to discuss any and all custom work that you've done or had made that may not be available on the retail market.
I'll be building a custom headache rack for my 16' SCREW, need some input from the hive mind.
The rack will be made of 2" square tube (.125 thickness). It will be sprayed with Line-X when I drop the truck off to get the bed and running boards sprayed. It will be a functional rack as I need the ability to haul long lengths of wood/metal/ladders/etc.... With my last truck (11' ranger), I found that I really needed some lighting for the bed, so on this one, I will be adding some LED flood lights to the top two inner corners and running a switch from inside the cab. Probably going to use these:
1. Is it worth the trouble to hide the wiring inside the rack? I'm thinking not, as I will need to deal with figuring out waterproof openings for the wires to enter/exit through and replacing lights will be much harder unless I invest in quality plugs. I was thinking of just welding small loops on the backside and using zip ties to route the wiring on the back face of the rack. I'll be using shielded 16/2 cables so it will look pretty nice anyway. Opinions?
2. I'll be designing around the need to keep my 3rd brake light exposed. I don't see any reason to have to add in any extra brake/turn/backup lights on the rack if they are not needed?
3. Should I attach tabs to the rack and use the smaller 'pod' style lights? rather than the bar style I linked to above?
4. Is there anything that you wish you had fabricated on your headache rack that you don't have now?
Got everything tacked together. 2X2 tube and 3/16 angle for the bed-interface.
I had plans to make it look very similar to the tail lights, AKA have the support bar go out and down via some 45-degree bends. But after I mocked that design up it looked too busy. So I took it back to something simple.
After everything is welded up I'm going to spray the bed and rack with Linex.
I'm mocking up some mounting tabs for backwards facing bed lights. They will go on the inside, upper corners (both sides). The lights will run into the cab and will get run by the KustomFX switch panel.
Any suggestions for things I should weld on before I send it off for coating? I tried of thinking up what tabs I might want down the road, but I'm drawing a blank.
That seems severely overbuilt, considering that it's just resting on the bed rail. How do you plan to attach it to the bed? Remember that, no matter how strong the rack itself is, it's only as strong as the weakest link between it & the truck frame. If the rack-to-bed attachment is weak, it'll just rip loose from the bed, and become more mass moving through the cab. Same if the bedrail is weakest - and the bedrail is certainly weaker than 3/16" angle. Even the frame isn't 3/16" thick.
Basically done with the rack. Just need to connect it to electrical.
Weighs in right at 100lbs... I was thinking that was outrageous, but after looking around at any of the higher-end (non aluminum) racks they were all over 100lbs; so I'm not too unhappy about the weight.
Ended up cutting out a grate on the CNC plasma, made it pretty easy to have nice looking cut-outs for the pod lights.
It's attached via 3x stainless (with black oxide coating) bolts per side. Obviously the bed will rip way before the rack. This is not a roll bar, nor will it be seeing loads like that on a semi or a dedicated metal delivery vehicle. Worst this will see is a flying piece of firewood, cinder block, bike, or pelican case.
Sprayed everything with LineX. All the electrical is hidden inside the frame (with service loops) and all exits are via wire glands to keep the inside dry.
Still think the holes through the upright tabs was a good thought but guess you can attach to grids just x the straps to keep load from sliding.
overbuilt yes but looks good.
I though about making some kind of removable mount for some forward facing lights.... Still might, wouldn't be hard to design around that I have by adding some riv-nuts and custom brackets.
My straps can fit through the space between the bottom-most grill opening and the main frame of the rack, and although I do with I would of welded on some corner gussets/hook points out of some 1/2 plate, what I have so far is working perfectly.
After a few months of use the only thing I would change is that I would have made it from aluminum. I still might make another in aluminum if I can collect enough drops from jobs to keep the material cost down.
08-28-2018, 12:24 AM
Building a custom headache rack. Need advice!
