i need a light bar and roof rack. i also do not have the luxury of a welder or any kind of bender. SO! the challange is help me fighure out a 'bolt together/ bolt on'' roof rack and light bar. is there anyway pvc would be strong enough? hollow would be cool for the light bar as to run wires through it.

 

Moved to Chat.

Plenty of guys have made racks without welding. Conduit is a popular choice.

Search a bit, you'll find tons of info.

 

i saw a really nice one made out of conduit but i thought he said it had been welded? i dont even know what conduit is lol google time

 

The grey-ish tube that people run wires through. Usually you see it leading to an outlet box when your in a room with cinder block walls.

There are connectors you can use that don't require welding.

 

awesome. i just found a thread that seems really sturdy and non welded

 

The tube is called EMT, Electrical Metallic Tubing, it comes in 10' sticks and could work for what you want. I've used it in sizes from 1/2" to 3" doing electrical work and the stuff is pretty stout. You can get hand benders for the small stuff, I have only hand bent up to 1", and for the big stuff you havta get 90's and like. The smaller tubing would probably do fine for you. If you get a bender make sure it's the right size, you can kink the tubing if you use a big bender on small tubing, and there's a trick with the measuring to make sure you get it right. If you go this route and have any questions just PM me and I'll try to answer them.

 

awesome. thanks buddy. i just drew up my roof rack plan and priced it but i think just to get my feet wet im gonna start out with a light bar. and thats gonna be the hard part cause im gonna have to fab up a way to connect it to the gutters.

 

I just made on for my jeep 20 bucks for materials 5 bucks for paint has 4 lights mounted in front of it

 

If you have mounting problems what I did was use four hose clamps and mounted it to the top of the stock rack

 

you wouldnt happen to have a write up would you? cause i wanna leave my stock bars available to mount the rack too

 

I can measure it and post the specs Tomorrow I used 1/8 expanded metal for the floor I'll post some pics of as well easy to make

 

sweeeet! thanks a ton

 

hose clamps? I hope they were big! what my bud did is slide the 2 stock racks off the slider, build them into the rack, then slide the whole thing into the sliders again.... then he rolled it into a tree when he was ****-faced... But it was cool while he had it and removable. Wasn't super duper strong but worked for carrying a spare or a bunch skis/snowboards in the winter.

 

Here I found this picture similar to what I'm talking about (sorry can post it cuzz I'm on my iPod)

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2576/...c5fe9abf63.jpg

 

A cheap way to do the light bar is to go to the junk yard and find a stock rack that is the same as what you have on there now and drill holes in it to bolt your lights on and they are hollow so you can run your wires through it. Thats how I did mine and it has worked out great. Its not the best picture but you can kinda see it. (the ladder is covering one of the lights)