making a roof rack

[discojmz]

now then chaps

needed a roofrack for my D1 for a long time now, but havent to this point £400 quids worth of needed one, so ive been inspired and im definitely gonna give it a go building one myself.

obviously weight is a concern and since you can only carry 75kg on your roof by law anyway, i suppose strength doesnt have to be huge either, obviously without it being flimsy and breaking on the motorway

requirements are to mount a couple jerry cans, maybe a spare but maybe not, recovery ropes/strops, bracketing for 4 rectangular lights up front and 1 maybe 2 worklights rear and my 2 foot amber twin beacon.

havent thought about the feet for it yet so im very open to insight on that. for the main lower frame do i need 30mm x 3mm box section or will 25 x 2mm do the job?

as for filling it in, i didnt know whether to use box, flat bars, something like 5mm round bar, or just a middle piece of box and then board the thing. i suppose i could use 30mm box round the sides and 25 on the inside to create a 5mm indent for boarding?

i dont think i require sides at the moment, they could prospectively come later of course.

sorry if my post isnt the technically coherent writing you guys are used to. ive fabricated a lot of things in the past, but it's usually been lockups from old fuel tanks, horse feeders, farm implements, scrapheap challenge type projects and the odd bit of repair type fab work. dont think ive ever tried to make anything that actually looks good. (fear not though, i can make things nice and square!)

finished article will be hammerited by myself if it will suffice. well, etch primed and a coat or two of witham's black supercoat enamel (love the stuff!)

so, you maestros of metal, how much of it have i got wrong so far?!

regards

Jim

[Ivan]

See the other post if you are interested.

Ivan

[discojmz]

oh come on, 86 views and no input

decided it would be 3/4" box. lighter but evidently strong enough

does anyone have a full rack they could measure for me?

cheers

[discojmz]

i have a manual pipe bender that ive bent inch 2mm walled tube fairly easily with. will this bend 20mm 1.5mm walled box section ok? are theyre any formers available for doing box?

cheers

[Francisco-Rey]

Hi from Portugal

I can send you some drawnings of one, the measures are in centimeters. I think that are based in a camel trophy

Juste mail me in

francisco-rey@iol<dot>pt

Cheers

[Hybrid_From_Hell]

^^^^^^^^^

Quality 1st post !

nige

[discojmz]

thankyou very much sir! that will be a massive help!!

only issue now is whether i can buy the feet or whether i will have to make some somehow. that's the only real sticking point

[Mark]

oooh, we like that a lot!

[Francisco-Rey]

Here in Portugal we use to buy the feet in some car acessories shop like a not expensive roofbar, and use the interesting parts or use them as reference.

I think that it could be easy to translate the legend of the drawnings but if you have any problem be free to contact.

Cheers

[tacr2man]

If you making roof rack to really use it on and off road, dirt tracks etc dont use feet, use a strip of flat on edge weld legs to that, so that load is spread all the way along the drip rail, that way it will not distort the drip rail. IMHO

[discojmz]

that is a nice rack! (steady ) but it must weigh a tonne with 5mm walled inch tubing

still trying to decide whether to make that one or a simpler one out of square section and not necessarily any sides. hmmmmmmmm too tempted by the camel one now

*heads off in the direction of google images*

ahhh, i wonder if the roof rack was designed to act as a form of ROPS?? on the actual camels it seems it doesnt use gutter feet but moreover it appears to bolt through the roof itself, (perhaps to the internal rollcage??)

[Francisco-Rey]

Yes you are right:

"".... it must weigh a tonne with 5mm walled inch tubing"" and it realy works like ""... roof rack was designed to act as a form of ROPS?? on the actual camels it seems it doesnt use gutter feet but moreover it appears to bolt through the roof itself, (perhaps to the internal rollcage??) ""

Cheers

[Francisco-Rey]

After some search here they are soe pics of "...use gutter feet but moreover it appears to bolt through the roof itself, (perhaps to the internal rollcage??) ""

[Francisco-Rey]

Hi

By the moment I'm looking for the draws of a front steering guard to make one for my Discovery I does any one have some informations about?

Cheers