Roof rack for awning on pickup topper

[Dakota Houligans]

Took the topper of to paint it and mount the rack.



Sanded the topper down. Figured I'd paint it to match the truck.



And a little white.



Now time for the rack. Since it isn't really going to hold anything more than an awning and maybe a solar panel occasionally. I decided to make it out of 3/4 inch black pipe and the mounts from 3/16 inch plate.







Apparently I forgot to grab more pictures of the rack as I built it. Here it is painted and mounted on the topper.





I have reinforcement plates on the inside that are slightly larger than the mounts to help distribute the load and stress on the topper.

 

[ThundahBeagle]

Cool that you can metal fab.

What awning is that?

 

[Dakota Houligans]

Cool that you can metal fab.

What awning is that?

Just the bigger arb one. It has been on our pop up camper for several years. Wife thought we should have the ability to bring it with when using tents.

 

[ThundahBeagle]

Your topper paint job came out very nice as well. How long is your truck bed? I have Trac Rac Cap Rack on my topper, so there are basically 2 fat rails that go side to side, but no front-to-back rails. Thinking about getting a similar awning and figuring a way to attach...

 

[Dakota Houligans]

Your topper paint job came out very nice as well. How long is your truck bed? I have Trac Rac Cap Rack on my topper, so there are basically 2 fat rails that go side to side, but no front-to-back rails. Thinking about getting a similar awning and figuring a way to attach...

View attachment 201994View attachment 201992

Bed is a little over 6.5 feet. The awning is around 8 feet I believe. Thanks, it turned out pretty good for a rush paint job. Depending on if you put much on yours I'd see about running a bar or something underneath the cross bars and tucked up close to the mounts and attach the awning there. Or add a mounting plate to the mounts and just attach it in 2 places. I went with 4 mounting pads that had 4 bolts each (I'm confident that mine is overkill). But with it hanging out so far past the front of the rack I felt better with extra support. I tried to keep it as low as possible but it had to clear the door on the cab. If I had a 6 foot awning I could have kept it a little lower.

 

[ThundahBeagle]

The underside of my cross bars has a track in them - just as the topside does. I may be able to jury rig something. A 6 foot awning would be nice, but I wonder how much coverage it would really provide. If I space the 8 foot right, theres only 9 inches or so of overhang...

Next thing I know, I'll be looking for one off the rear, or a 270 degree

 

[Escape_The_Insanity]

Took the topper of to paint it and mount the rack.

View attachment 201946

Sanded the topper down. Figured I'd paint it to match the truck.

View attachment 201947

And a little white.

View attachment 201948

Now time for the rack. Since it isn't really going to hold anything more than an awning and maybe a solar panel occasionally. I decided to make it out of 3/4 inch black pipe and the mounts from 3/16 inch plate.

View attachment 201949

View attachment 201950

View attachment 201951

Apparently I forgot to grab more pictures of the rack as I built it. Here it is painted and mounted on the topper.

View attachment 201952

View attachment 201953

I have reinforcement plates on the inside that are slightly larger than the mounts to help distribute the load and stress on the topper.

Looks good.