Several of you may have seen the thread a while back about my quest to build a fiberglass kayak, and after a friend on the board here made me a good deal on his dad's 'yak, the home made thing is probably on the back burner until I retire and have nothing better to do but putter in say 30 years or so. I also bought a new truck since then, and I've come up with a new issue. I have a camp about 4 hours from my home. 120 miles of the trip is interstate highway. I now own an access cab Tacoma (called extended cab or club cab by other manufacturers) and Toyota doesn't make a factory roof rack for it. Aftermarket roof racks are $500 plus, and that dog ain't gonna hunt. Looking for homemade ideas that won't damage the roof, I'd like to get 2 kayaks to the camp safely on the roof and leave the bed free to fill with other stuff (dirt bikes/quad). I also have an 18' canoe that lives at camp, I would like very much to be able to throw the 'yaks in the bed and strap the canoe to the same roof rack. That trip will be 10 miles tops and won't be at highway speed, though. I can weld and figure the canoe solution will involve the trailer hitch, mostly looking for DIY roof racks that will accommodate a cheap, removable kayak rack. I do not have a sunroof, although my next truck may.

I wouldn't do the roof rack on a pickup.  You should be able to get a ladder rack for a lot less than that.  You could also easily make your own out a few 2x4s.  Wrap your cross beams with pool noodles, and tie the kayaks down with cam lock straps.

2 hours ago, J Francho said:

I wouldn't do the roof rack on a pickup.  You should be able to get a ladder rack for a lot less than that.  You could also easily make your own out a few 2x4s.  Wrap your cross beams with pool noodles, and tie the kayaks down with cam lock straps.

I was thinking about a ladder rack, would be great for just fishing (or hauling ladders, it would be nice to do that, too), but it would have to sit really high above the cab to clear the handlebars of a dirtbike and the rear bar would make loading a quad/dirtbike a royal pain. 

That's always a drawback with anything other than the top of the line stuff, like Thule or Yakima.  I've seen less expensive ones, but it looked like a pain to take them off if you wanted carry tall cargo.  I typically put both kayaks in my bed, and then any other cargo goes in the kayak, or in plastic bins strapped in on top of them.  You could probably go the 2x4 route, and make it easy to remove and replace the crossbars.  Just brainstorming out loud here...

18 minutes ago, J Francho said:

That's always a drawback with anything other than the top of the line stuff, like Thule or Yakima.  I've seen less expensive ones, but it looked like a pain to take them off if you wanted carry tall cargo.  I typically put both kayaks in my bed, and then any other cargo goes in the kayak, or in plastic bins strapped in on top of them.  You could probably go the 2x4 route, and make it easy to remove and replace the crossbars.  Just brainstorming out loud here...

Brainstorming, that's exactly what I was hoping this thread would turn into! As far as the 2x4 rack goes, I should probably add that I don't have stake holes or it would really be a no brainer. What I do have in the bed, however, is a fancy new fangled track system up under the rails. Up on the roof, in an inconvenient location above the third brake light, I also have a little plastic antenna that looks like a dorsal fin that i'll probably break if I hit it with something.

I have something similar on my Sierra for Serius/XM. It's pretty tough, I hang onto it when I'm washing the truck, lol. 

I wonder if I can strap 2 boats to it, LOL. Really though it looks like something I can easily rip off while pulling a canoe off the roof.

My Tacoma DC TRD OR has the factory optional Snugtop. I bought my Tacoma in 2006 and it is still like new with just turning 100,000. It has always had a Yakima rack on the Snugtop. But I also have the factory rack installed on the cab. I have carried two large kayaks, on either rack, from Kansas to San Diego and to Key West, twice. Never a single problem. I carry them to TR lake a few times a year, many, many miles. I use the Yakima J type carries.

 

Yakima has an adapter for factory racks. Surely the new Tacomas have a factory rack option? My 06 did not come with the factory cab rack. I bought it after the fact from Toyota Parts and installed it myself. 

Since you can weld you have some good options if you have a way to get your hands on some cheap unistrut you could easily make up a rack that would be able either work with both you yak and your bikes, maybe leaving a bar "loose" so it would only be a matter of a few bolts to pop it in and out. I was working up some plans for my old truck along a simpler path, but the truck died before I built it.  I was able to tack a few sticks onto a larger order and iirc I was only going to be like $100-200 into materials, but I was going to use bolts and brackets for most of it, it would be far cheaper if you did most of it with welds.  

I'm going to be getting either a Thule or Yakima top rack for my F-150 to carry the canoe I'll be buying soon.  I tow a camping trailer so I can't have it hanging out the back, and on a Supercab with a 5½ foot bed it's not going to work in the bed even when I don't have the trailer hooked up.  They want a ridiculous amount for either brand, but I haven't found anything less that I would trust.

19 hours ago, 3crows said:

My Tacoma DC TRD OR has the factory optional Snugtop. I bought my Tacoma in 2006 and it is still like new with just turning 100,000. It has always had a Yakima rack on the Snugtop. But I also have the factory rack installed on the cab. I have carried two large kayaks, on either rack, from Kansas to San Diego and to Key West, twice. Never a single problem. I carry them to TR lake a few times a year, many, many miles. I use the Yakima J type carries.

 

Yakima has an adapter for factory racks. Surely the new Tacomas have a factory rack option? My 06 did not come with the factory cab rack. I bought it after the fact from Toyota Parts and installed it myself. 

The Double Cab has a factory optional rack, the Access Cab does not. I have seen a few guys cut up the factory double cab rack on the TacomaWorld forums and I could do that, but it looks like a hacked up rack when it's done. If I had an '06 with 100k, I'd do it in a heartbeat, but I have a '17 AC TRD Sport with 947 miles and I'm just not ready to go there yet.

7 hours ago, RPreeb said:

I'm going to be getting either a Thule or Yakima top rack for my F-150 to carry the canoe I'll be buying soon.  I tow a camping trailer so I can't have it hanging out the back, and on a Supercab with a 5½ foot bed it's not going to work in the bed even when I don't have the trailer hooked up.  They want a ridiculous amount for either brand, but I haven't found anything less that I would trust.

Looking at the aftermarket, while it's still more than I wanna spend, I've read spectacular reviews on the Rhino Racks, most say they're a slightly better rack for a little less money. If nobody puts up a couple pics of some kind of strap on unit that they made or $100 universal rack that they swear by, that's the brand I'll probably buy.

Our trucks at work have a square stock steel ladder rack that bolts to the top of the bed.  The rear cross piece gets cut out, two pieces of round stock get welded to the inside of the back uprights and smaller pieces of round stock welded to the bottom of the cut off piece.  It makes it so that we can remove the top back bar to get any equipment in and out that would have height restrictions by just lifting one side out and swinging it out of the way.   I'll try and get a picture.

Edited September 25, 20178 yr by redmexican5081
pic added