semi-custom roof rack for my WJ

so yesterday i spent the day at Number7's house with him helping me weld up my rack..

i started with a Rola rack and extension. it's a very inexpensive rack, yet pretty tough. I already had someone weld the extension in permanently quite a while ago (with them just screwed in, it flexed too much for my liking). once welded solid though, it made a extremely stout and great looking rack.



the only problem at that point was that the factory crossbars and rail system has tons of movement in it and never felt very secure to me. also, the Rola attachments to the factory crossbars were kind of wimpy and would allow the rack to slide from side to side sometimes when off-camber and fully loaded with tire/fuel cans/etc.

the first step was to remove all the factory stuff. next i laid down some 1/8 thick by about 1" wide steel in place of the factory rails, drilled it for the factory attachment holes, rounded off the end corners and got some new stainless steel screws and washers to fasten it to the factory thread-serts. i used only 1/8 thick so it would lay down nice and match the curve of the roof without putting lots of stress on the thread-serts. these pieces really will just need to spread the load of the rack more than any other structural purpose.

then i put the rack up there, got it all lined up and started cutting the "feet" for it - 0.25" thick by about 1.5" wide steel. i then tried to get it all tack-welded into place before taking it to george for the real welding. i got some of it tacked, but i've never welded before and even my tack welds weren't holding worth a crap. later george told me that the harbor freight welder i had came with crap wire and he let me play with his welder and indeed i was able to make some decent welds in no time (now i can't wait to go buy some better wire and start practicing welding!)

here's the first front "foot" tacked into place:



and george tacking the other feet into place (we used a wet blanket to keep the spatters off the paint, mostly):



taken off the jeep in order to finish welding:



the tubing on the rack itself was kinda thin, so george talked me into adding some gussets that tied the feet to more surface area of the rack. i'm glad he did, they came out nice and i'm sure added tons more strength... now i'll never worry about the feet tearing off the thin tube:



view from the front looks great:



and here's some other shots of the nearly finished product:









i still need to fab up a hi-lift carrier on one side and a shovel & axe carrier on the other side, and maybe add some light tabs, etc. and then prep and paint.

thanks tons to George for all the help constructing this!

my full build thread is here if interested in any other mods... http://www.offroadpassport.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5

the hi-lift and axe/shovel carriers finally

went over to george's house again today and he was nice enough to weld up my latest contraption! again i cut and bent 95% of everything before i went over so he just had to help me with reality checks, some gusset ideas and his master welding skills!

everything here was done with a single grinder, a hammer, a vice, a sharpie, a ruler, and a friend with a welder! i mocked everything up with coathangers before bending/cutting the real metal, very helpfull:


the start of it all:




middle braces in and top reinforcements. the top reinforcements were a great idea by george:




"pockets" for the axe and shovel getting welded on:




better view of how the "pockets" sit:




me bendin' and cuttin' the outside axe/shovel clamps:




testing the clamps with the axe/shovel on one side and the hi-lift on the other:






the final product will have all stainless steel bolts with one bolt on each side drilled to accept padlock, like my former factory roof-rack hi-lift holder.


tomorrow should have some time to clean up all the spatter, sand, prep and paint the new metal. yay! starting to look more like an expedition vehicle soon!

thanks again for the help george!

i like the rack - nice work!

those rims look great, too.

Sweet setup. You might want to think about adding gussets to the flat stock you used to connect the two because it may be a little on the weak size with lateral motion when it is loaded down. The only other thing would be to eventually switch to tube steel for those.

Scotsmanspride said:

Sweet setup. You might want to think about adding gussets to the flat stock you used to connect the two because it may be a little on the weak size with lateral motion when it is loaded down. The only other thing would be to eventually switch to tube steel for those.

Click to expand...

yeah, tube would be ideal, but much harder to work with limited tools.

with the main stuff being 1.25 or 1.5 wide, there's absolutely no front-to-back movement or twisting. and with that small brace that goes from the center of the "face" of the mounts down to the bottom rack tube, i'm really not worried about any "sagging" type bending either.

guess only time will tell if it was designed strong enough!

edit - just realized you might be talking about the flat stock connecting the main rack to the roof "track"? i thought you were talking about the recent carrier mods at first. anyway, having the uprights at an angle i thing adds stability. everything seems really sturdy, i can hang and try and do pullups from one side of the rack and shake the whole jeep and there's no flex in anything... again, time will tell.

I dig it..

You used the same concept i will be using, through the roof. I'll be using square tube for my risers to a flat platform.

On the flat stock that runs along where your OEM rack was, it looks wavey, did you use all the original "nutsert" (thread flashback) locations?

Dont mean to criticize, it looks good. Just curious..

OverlandXJ said:

I dig it..

You used the same concept i will be using, through the roof. I'll be using square tube for my risers to a flat platform.

On the flat stock that runs along where your OEM rack was, it looks wavey, did you use all the original "nutsert" (thread flashback) locations?

Dont mean to criticize, it looks good. Just curious..

Click to expand...

yes, i used all the original nutserts. the first thing i did was lay down the bottom "track" and line it up and drill holes for the nutserts. then i bolted it down and measured/cut/welded everything based on those 2 "track" locations.

if you're talking about how that bottom "track" looks like it bulges up in a couple locations in the pic below... it does. it was perfect but then the heat from welding expanded the metal and made it bow up between the first two and last two uprights. after this pic was taken, i took it off and hammered the metal back down in those locations and it's nearly perfect again, there's still a little tiny upward bow. i may put more nutserts in one day and pull it all perfectly flat to the roofline again - there's only 5 i think per side factory!

Heat warpage.. that makes sense.. hadnt crossed my mind.

Thanks for the input, i'll drill a few more mounting holes to try and avoid that.

Rig is a looker! :smiley_drive:

Very cool :costumed-smiley-007

I'll be taking a slightly different approach if I can ever get around to finishing the project.

grrreat rack, if your ever gonna get rid of it, let me know, it's nice solid fab work.

paint has dried and so the roof rack went back on today. also put on all the stainless steel mounting bolts after drilling them for the locks (PITA drilling thru bolts it is).

only issues:

- i need a leather sheath for the axe so no one gets hurt when taking it down

- the head of the hi-lift rattles a bit against the body of it when i hit a bump. quick fix was a bungy to pull it tight against itself. long term fix would be to weld yet another riser off the main rack, with a rubber bumper on it, positioned so that as you tighten down the jack, the head of the jack would come to rest on the rubber bumper, thereby pushing firmly against the jack body.

- haven't hit high speed with it yet, hopefully no whistles

first real test will be this week for the Kofa run!

Again, Very cool!

Looking good. :smiley_drive:

Very nice work. Love the WJ looks perfect.:clapsmile

Looks nice and clean.

Super sweet :sombrero: