I’m finally getting started on building the roof rack for the Land Cruiser. It’s a huge relief to finally be working on this. It’s the last major project on the BJ42 before our big trip.
As you can see in the photo above I’m building it out of 1″ aluminum tubing. I don’t have much experience welding aluminum so this should be an adventure. I’ll be MIG welding it with my old Hobart Beta-Mig 170. I hope to learn to TIG weld someday but that will have to wait. I don’t do enough welding to justify the expense of a TIG welder when my old Hobart does everything I need it to do.
My wife helped me cut and bend most of the structural tubing for the bottom tray portion of the rack. I spent some time coming up with the concept of the sidewalls for the “basket” portion of the rack. I like the idea of a half-basket rack. It’s not quite an expedition or safari rack but it will be more useful. I can always remove the cargo box and tie down long lumber without the basket sidewalls getting in the way.
I bought some really cheap (i.e. shitty Chinese quality) tools on eBay to help with the project. I bought a tubing bender and a hole-saw-type tubing notcher. I previously had some very nice versions of these tools back in CA that I used for fabricating sandrail frames. The “new” ones aren’t so nice but they get the job done.
I’m still waiting on the Teflon liner for the welder. I also ordered another MIG gun and a spool gun is on the way too. When some of that stuff shows up I’ll spend a day or two welding everything up.
One of the reasons I decided to build this myself is to accommodate the Thule cargo box into the design. There isn’t a rack available anywhere that I could find with this feature. I think ultimately it will be cheaper and better quality than many other options I looked into. If this goes well and I’m able to do a decent job welding the aluminum I may decide to make them for other people. I think there will be some interest in the roof rack design since it’s unique. It will fit a huge range of Land Cruiser years and models like in the FJ40/BJ40 series.
I took a bunch of photos of the progress on the rack and threw them in the gallery below.
