# DIY Over Truck Bed Rack



## azorr (Jul 9, 2012)

Generally when I go biking I will throw my bike in the bed of my truck and take off. If there is something in the bed, I have a hitch mounted rack. However, I am planning a camping trip where I will need to pull a trailer and fill the bed with camping gear, so I decided to build a rack that holds the bikes up over the bed. I was lucky enough that another member on here gave me a couple of Sportrack bike trays a couple months ago, so that was the expensive part taken car of. I lucked out and found some aluminum 1-1/4 inch poles in the scrap section at a metal yard, they even had endcaps installed already! Then I used about 3 feet of angle iron and some u-bolts to round this out. Luckily one of my riding buddies has a welder and put the angle together for me. Its held to the truck with camper shell clamps. Total cost was less than $70 since I already had the trays.


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## drag_slick (Sep 24, 2004)

Nice! Here's my variation. Same issue, we have a bumper pull camper and the bed gets loaded with gear. Two things I needed mine to do: 1. bikes had to be low enough to clear the garage while on the rack and 2. close my tonneau cover with the rack installed.

I bought some Thule load bars and cut them to length, then had some steel bent in a 'U' to fit the load bars, cut and welded the u-channel to the backing plate and bolted it to the inside of the bed rails. Total cost for the brackets was about $50. Everything else came from Cracks and Racks.


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## azorr (Jul 9, 2012)

Nice! I like your system. I didn't bother making it fit into the garage, since my truck is too long for our garage anyway. My requirements were that I didn't have to drill holes in the truck and I didn't want to have to remove the front wheel. Glad I am not the only one thinking along these lines.



drag_slick said:


> Nice! Here's my variation. Same issue, we have a bumper pull camper and the bed gets loaded with gear. Two things I needed mine to do: 1. bikes had to be low enough to clear the garage while on the rack and 2. close my tonneau cover with the rack installed.
> 
> I bought some Thule load bars and cut them to length, then had some steel bent in a 'U' to fit the load bars, cut and welded the u-channel to the backing plate and bolted it to the inside of the bed rails. Total cost for the brackets was about $50. Everything else came from Cracks and Racks.
> 
> ...


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## drag_slick (Sep 24, 2004)

I should add too, the brackets are drilled so that a bolt or pin goes snugly across the top of the load bar to hold it down in the bracket, you can see that in the first picture.


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## crumanchu (Dec 25, 2014)

Thanks for the ideas! I took your thoughts, and here is my variation. I have the same constraints as azorr, I need to be able to pull a trailer and have some cargo space in the bed. Height wasn't an issue. I used an old ladder rack a friend gave me, slid an old inner tube over them, used 2" angle iron to mount them and some trays I found in craigslist. Total cost was just short of $100.


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## azorr (Jul 9, 2012)

Sweet setup!



crumanchu said:


> Thanks for the ideas! I took your thoughts, and here is my variation. I have the same constraints as azorr, I need to be able to pull a trailer and have some cargo space in the bed. Height wasn't an issue. I used an old ladder rack a friend gave me, slid an old inner tube over them, used 2" angle iron to mount them and some trays I found in craigslist. Total cost was just short of $100.


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