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Roof rack build

S

Steve F

NAXJA Forum User
Location
Australia
Winter next year I plan to travel to Cape York, the most Northern part of Australia, a touch over 2700km from my home in Sydney. Anyway, as you get further North it gets more remote and sealed roads disappear and crocs appear ;) Due to this we decided we wanted to sleep on the roof of the Jeep in a roof top tent.

So over the last couple of days I built a roof rack for it, total cost was $120 including the bought gutter mounts. I was going to make the gutter mounts but these are tested to 500kg and were too cheap to refuse.

Anyway the pics of the rack as it is now, just need to tidy it up, bolt on the middle two gutter mounts and weld on some tabs for lights and bunge hooks etc and then it's ready for paint. I wanted it low profile and suitable for carrying wood and steel lengths as well as camping gear and to serve as a platform for taking photos from.

The outer halo is 1" tube with a 2.6mm thickness, the cross bars are 2"x1" and are 1.6mm thick.

IMG_4015.jpg


IMG_4008nonum.jpg


Cheers
Steve
 
Nice! Looks good man.

Just out of curiosity though - who makes that rear bumper? Its style is VERY similar to one my father has on his '95 Land Cruiser.
 
Wow Steve - that looks great!
(As do all the metal work - wish I had that skill....)

Tire / lift question - how high, what tire size - all the usual questions about a great looking rig.

Thanks - and have fun on your trip.
 
RTFM said:
Wow Steve - that looks great!
(As do all the metal work - wish I had that skill....)

Tire / lift question - how high, what tire size - all the usual questions about a great looking rig.

Thanks - and have fun on your trip.
Click to expand...

Its running around 5" of lift with 35"x12.5" Maxxis Bighorns and the bushwacker flat flares. I've swapped in a D44 for the rear and regeared to 4.56 also added drop boxes for the control arms up front. Its a pretty good tourer with this setup and with the detroit in the rear will go pretty much anywhere I want to :)

Cheers
Steve
 
anthrax323 said:
Nice! Looks good man.

Just out of curiosity though - who makes that rear bumper? Its style is VERY similar to one my father has on his '95 Land Cruiser.
Click to expand...


Take a look at Steve's older posts.. he did a thread on the rear bumper. As stout as any i'v seen.


Steve, that's exactly what i had envisioned for my rack build. If your going to put a deck down keep in mind the RTT's mount easier when you can slide it up there with the ubolts unobstructed as they slide on. It's a pita to lift each corner and align hardware from the sides.

What RTT are you leaning towards? Where did you source the gutter clamps?
 
I'll most likely get a RTT from ebay, something like this one. They are around $1200 fo all that is shown, sounds a lot but bear in mind prices here do seem to be typically higher than the US so for us it's fairly cheap :)

pic10_1526_large.jpeg


With the included awning, flyscreens and annex. I'll only take the RTT and Awning/Flyscreens on the trip as there will nly be the three of us (Myself, Wife and youngest, 2 year old, daughter)

I wont be putting any mesh floor on it as I have a roof basket that I can mount to the rack when needed, I want to keep the actual rack as simple as possible without too much weight :)

Cheers
Steve
 
Last edited:
I'm fairly certain I've lived in apartments smaller than that tent ;)

Good job on the roof rack so far; I've had similar thoughts, so I'm definitely looking forward to seeing how it turns out with the tent on it.
 
The rack can handle a few Yaks that way too.. nicely done.

Where are you sourcing the gutter mounts? They look beefy with a wide foot.

Should have realized you'd be partial to the ARB style RTT.. :laugh3:
 
Got the gutter mounts locally $80 for 6. They are not listed on the website so I just sent them an email and dropped in. They are 3mm thick and are used on all their racks.

Powerful4X4

I welded another 6 mounts on today to attach the other end of the gutter mount bracket too, added a tiny bit of weight but a lot more strength for the mounts.

Cheers
Steve
 
My wife and I spent over a full month living out of our arb Simpson 3 this past summer and I have very few complaints about it.

I would suggest that you wire in some sort of lighting. I put an led strip on the top bar and it was very handy.

Mounting the tent wasnt fun by myself so I am considering leaving it attached to the roofrack and then just remove it all together as a unit and then build myself second roofrack to swap on.
 
Starting to plan my rack build and was just wondering what is the length and width of the rack?
BTW nice looking XJ!

Bill
 
Here's a few, I've since welded on 6 more supports, 1 for the far end of each of the gutter mount brackets.

IMG_4012.jpg


The height is adjustable, you can just make out the two piece main bracket allowing the leg height to adjust.

IMG_4005.jpg


IMG_4007.jpg


Cheers
Steve
 
The roof rack is finished, it was too hot out to put all the bolts in but at least the paint got baked on nicely ;) You can see the other two holes on each mount that still need bolts, I'll put those in later this afternoon or in the morning when it's cooler.

IMG_4141nonum.jpg


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IMG_4139.jpg


Cheers
Steve
 
Off Topic - But cool house Steve! I've been more into house stuff than Jeep stuff lately, so I had to chime in.

Your fab work is always amazing. Thanks for posting!
 
Put the tent on today, too damn hot (40c) to put it all up so just did the basics. Loving it already, quick to setup and works well on the XJ. Its offset to the passenger side to leave room for the awning to mount on the drivers side. I'll set it all up on the weekend and grab some more pics.

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Cheers
Steve
 
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