The design itself couldn’t be more simple. Highland 2006200 Black Heavy-Duty Bar Carrier. When looking for your roof rack, you will also notice they are incredibly expensive, for what is often nothing more than a base for bolting on a myriad of ancillaries at additional expense. The previous MMM car – a 2004 Subaru Impreza wagon. There are a lot of different options for expedition roof racks, but unless you intend fitting a roof tent, then you probably don’t need to carry more than 50 to 100kgs. Ours are from Jack Bombay in the US, but you can get lift kits in the UK or from eBay. Wood can be the least expensive option to go if you're on a budget. It's a simple and cheap way to make a solid roof rack. The Cross bar is protected by bar guard on cross bars. I bolted through using stainless steel fittings and big washers, but you could use U bolts and bolt around the bars instead. Thank you for your support! If you are extending the roof rack to the front of the van, consider adding a tee bracket in the middle. A DIY Roof Rack: Make your Small Car Carry Big Stuff. Drill a hole slightly smaller than the screw to bolt the flange to the fiberglass roof. The rack is incredibly lightweight and easy to assemble. So as we only usually want to store wet or infrequently used kit and a solar panel, neither of which is heavy, or perhaps a spare wheel, we went for Aluminium for lightness and modified it to suit our needs. But I am considering the strength of the fibre glass. DIY - Roof Rack Fairing / Wind Deflector. They simply sit in the rain gutter when the roof is down, spreading the load, especially when you climb up to load the roof rack. My rack is about the same height off the roof as the factory rack. Our racks are designed to be the Ultimate DIY Van friendly system! The Vantech H1 system uses 2″ X 1″ rectangular bars. The fittings are removeable and reconfigurable, so are very versatile. Firstly, if you have a fibreglass pop top like we do, then you need something to attach the rack to and to distribute the load. Want to save this DIY van roof rack for later? I've got about $400 in it. (DIY Solar will follow in separate article). Especially considering our particular needs and sizing. Obviously, you’ll need to the same thing on the other T-track. Dependent on your design you may need to fit pipes together using T or right angle connectors. Sprinter Van DIY $200 Roof Rack and Deck | Vanlife Hack. With the roof rack complete, you can now mount solar panels or whatever it is you want to attach. Once you have double and triple checked your measurements, use a pencil, draw a circle around the flange and in each of the screw holes. Now you can play around with the configuration. The fittings aren't cheap, but I've changed the configuration a couple times for very little. Saved from youtube.com. I bolted through using stainless steel fittings and big washers, but you could use U bolts and bolt around the bars instead. (Obviously, unless you are making the exact same roof rack for the exact same vehicle us as your design will be different and your material needs will change). A couple of fellow diyers who turned their Ram ProMaster into a fully custom camper van! 170" Vans come with 6 mounting brackets, 5 crossbars, and all hardware needed to install the rack to your van… To secure the cargo, I bolted on a set of Unwin cargo tracks from eBay again and bought a selection of cargo ring fittings. Next, we need to secure the rack to the vehicle. Our rails will ultimately be used to attach a roof rack to the van and support solar, an awning etc. DIY Unistrut – Superstrut – Powerstrut DIY Van Roof Rack. Much less than many of the other offerings available. Remove each bar of the rack and grab the cordless drill! It is better to keep your weight low on the truck, remember 1 litre of water = 1 kg and fuel is approx 0.8kgs. Having removed the feet, I needed a method to mount it. Recently we met with Joe and Erin Bacon. Out of a love for travel, we met one snowy Christmas night in Estonia. This is fine when you have a solid roof, but in our case we want to fit our rack to the fibre glass pop roof, which is strong but shouldn’t be overloaded. 1. Truck & Van Racks. Drilling the roof rail. Eighteen months later, we quit our day jobs in search of a more nomadic life style. Having the right tools is key. Of course, what you really need is a solid safe and secure roof rack. I used CVCs aluminium bars, but any generic ones from your friendly car accessory store will also work. In this episode, we decided build our own roof rack and deck for your Sprinter for around $200. Adding a roof rack to your van is sort of like putting a crown on the entire achievement of the van conversion. The Mounting uprights are 8″ X 2″ extra wide base and a total possible height of 29″ from base to top of endcap. The storage boxes are the Really Useful Boxes reviewed elsewhere on this site and the straps are generic cargo straps from your local DIY or hardware store. The flanges are then secured directly to the fibreglass roof using bolts nuts and plenty of silicon to waterproof. 462. Your email address will not be published. 2. We have drawn together a basic picture of how each supporting piece should look. While clicking these links won’t cost you any extra money, they will help us keep this site up and running! I used CVCs aluminium bars, but any generic ones from your friendly car accessory store will also work. I do not load or unload unless it’s fully down on the gutters. Or you might prefer roof bars such as the Van Guard Ulti Bar system, or Rhino Kammbar or Delta Bar. Maybe add a sticker to your dashboard with the new heights in loaded and unloaded configurations? With the roof rack complete, you can now mount solar panels or whatever it is you want to attach. A fully custom, DIY solar panel roof rack for a Promaster van! DIY Road Shower ROOFTOP SOLAR SHOWER SPECS: Capacity: Approximately 18.5 Liters (5 gallons) Total Length: Approximately 2.3 meters (7.5 ft) Weight When Full: Approximately 21 kgs (46 lbs) Ensure its sits properly and no further adjustment is required. I then bolted the roof rack through a set of roof bars, just like normal cars use. Make sure to tighten the bolts as securely as possible to avoid losing a panel (or a roof) in your overlanding journeys. Roof deck instead of rack... Hmm. Do you want the roof rack to extend the length of the car or only the cab? We needed to design a DIY van roof rack, from cheap materials available from the hardware. I then bolted the roof rack through a set of roof bars, just like normal cars use. Set the assembled rack atop the vehicle. The construction of the DIY van roof rack itself is easy. For our solar panels, we used U-bolt to secure them to the round pipe. We set out to try our hand at overlanding in a converted van (#vanlife). Attaching the rack permanently to the van is the scariest part of the whole build. Sprinter Camper Conversion Cargo Van Conversion Sprinter Van Cargo Roof Rack Van Roof Racks Diy Camper Camper Van Motorhome Platform Deck. Roof rails are a handy addition to any Sprinter but not all vans were ordered with the rails factory installed. Just ensure the bars are for gutter mounting, as the feet are needed to work with the brackets. Rhino-Rack RTS523 Sprinter Van Roof Tracks for 144″ Sprinters The kit includes two, 113 1/4″ extruded aluminum tracks, black plastic end caps, and all the mounting hardware. They run just about the full length of the van roof and are pre-drilled in … Don't have the dough to buy a wind deflector / fairing? Looking for more DIY conversion inspiration? The solar panel is a rigid 120w Biard panel from eBay (no surprise) and as you can see from the pictures, it all fits very nicely on the roof using extruded aluminium L section and bolts / pop rivets. Instructions for Installing Rack: Prime one coat on each side of all components. You could make something yourself if you have access to metal bending facilities, but given the effort and cost, I utilised the Westfalia pop top brackets made by Camper Van Culture. We hope you’ve found this post useful. We hope, through our wanderings, to inspire you, to travel, to explore and to get out there and experience the world. 99. Van & Truck Racks are a core segment at Rack Attack. ... Then, you can just use straps or bungees to attach the rack to the car/van, and leave those attached as long as you need the rack in place. I cannot tell you the number of times, we started a project only to find out that we did not have all the pieces. If it needs significant work I will remove it, do the work and refit it. Repeat this step for each flange. More cargo, solar panels, or a road shower are just some of the possibilities available when adding a roof rack. Steel has always been a popular DIY roof-rack option, as it is easy to acquire and relatively inexpensive. How many bolts you use and the kinds and directions of load is important when figuring out the hardware. Thanks for wandering with us! AA-Racks Model X37 Heavy Duty Rain-Gutter Van Roof Rack Round Bar Three Bar Set Steel Matte White. Secondly, the structure is very light and the transverse bars at the front and rear of the rack don’t take being kneeled on by a 120kg man! If you're looking for ways to add some extra storage to your car, these 10 easy DIY roof rack ideas are the way to go! don’t forget it when entering ferries or passing under low bridges or entering underground car parks! This step requires two people. Apr 4, 2019 - Sprinter Van DIY $200 Roof Rack and Deck | Vanlife Hack. DIY Rooftop Camper Made From The Simplest Of Materials. Camper Van Conversion With a No Weld DIY Roof Rack! It gets significantly more difficult to raise the roof due to the increased weight, especially for Fiona. The roof bars will connect to the roof with a tee junction, ‘nipples’, short bits of pipe which connect to the junction at one end, and screwed into flanges at the other. These days, it’s rare to find a converted van without some form of rack mounted to the top. Here is a roof rack i build from a ladder and some roof rails i didn't use. Instead of buying an expensive roof rack system, I commissioned a simple steel rack at the SLO MakerSpace, and then installed it on the fib… He helped us design a DIY van roof rack for our specific needs and hopefully we can do the same for you! Mounting solar panels on our curved van roof was one of the more puzzling challenges we faced during our build. This post is going to show you how YOU can make your own pressurized, roof rack solar shower for your vehicle. Sign up to get the latest stories, tips, and information on van life, travel destinations, and more…. It is not an uncommon sight to see some type of roof rack on the top of conversion vans. Ours are very heavy duty, but CVC have now produced a lighter version. The front one however, I kept as it provides protection for the solar panel, lifting overhanging branches over the edge of the panel. Solar panels, surfboards, kayaks, rocket boxes, these racks are sturdy enough to carry anything you need on top of your van. perusing the web for a couple of hours and trolling YouTube for instructional videos) we still were at a loss for how we were going to construct and install a roof rack. Half inch galvanized steel pipes form the bars of the roof rack. While there are plenty of options for standard cars and SUVs, finding one for a high fiberglass topped conversion van was little more difficult. So, to improve access, I removed the rear one. 4. However, if there’s nothing on the roof, it makes closing the roof a practice ground for a trapeze artist! I have imposed a rough 50 – 60kg cargo limit for the roof which is well inside the roof rack and bar limits. Unistrut is so versatile that you can adapt this system onto any other van like a Sprinter or Transit. The van roof racks and a ladder rack for van may come as one piece, or as several individual pieces that are installed at an interval along the roof. Need a roof rack for your van? Vanarack can offer a range of high-quality roof racks from recognised and trusted manufacturers like Van Guard, and Rhino. 3. This will help support the weight instead of one long piece of steel. 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