So I decided to go ahead and make my own roof basket instead of buying one. This will be my first time ever fabricating something and ever really using a welder for something important. I used a combination of my 90 amp harbor freight flux welder and a lincoln 125 mig welder.

I used 1x1 16 gauge square tubing for everything, and 6 JCR gutter mounts.

I started with just making the base of the rack on the first night, getting it perfectly square was the hard part, it ended up being only a quarter of an inch off, ill take that!



welds cleaned up pretty good


I wanted the front of the basket to follow the angler of the windshield, and i wanted the rear of the basket to follow the angle of the back hatch, so the front is angled 45 degrees and the rear is angled 30 degrees


I mocked up the basket on the roof by setting it on some foam blocks, then tacking the gutter mounts in place, so i could then finish weld them with the mig, how do my welds look??


And here it is on the roof!


Im going to take off the tracks on the roof, and ill also paint it flat black and add the two 6.5" LED light bars I have on the way!

 

It looks pretty good. The only thing is it doesn't look like you cleaned the joints before you welded them. Hopefully you did and I'm just not seeing it to well. I would hate to see the welds snap on you. But other then that the welds look pretty good.

 

That looks really good, I like that you followed the angles of the front and rear.

 

its been a little while but today i've finished all the small things like light tabs and hi-lift mount and last night i put the last coats of Rustoleum Flat Black Enamel on it so i was able to put it on for good today!

 

Looks a lot like how id like to do mine. How much tubing did you end up using? Looks pretty good!

 

I like it. I may use your design when I get ready to make one.

 

go for it! just make sure to post up some pics!

 

Dude.. Jealous of your tool box!! Good looking rack too