Custom Land Cruiser Roof Rack Build (Part 3)

fj40 roof rack buildup It rained most of the day today to I didn’t get much done on the aluminum roof rack for the Landcruiser.

The bottom tray is tack welded together now. I’m still not very good with welding aluminum. I was able to run a few nice beads along the pieces of angle where I spliced in a section of tubing. I’m starting to have problems with the 5356 .030″ wire not feeding smoothly through the brand new Teflon liner. It’s most likely because I cobbled it together from a brass fitting I pulled from an old steel liner. The silicone sealer apparently has let go and the liner is now pushing out of the end of the gun when I remove the tip.

I’m thinking that I should wait until the spool gun arrives to do any serious welding on the rack. Hopefully there won’t be any feed issues with it. The weather’s going to be crappy anyway so I might as well wait.

Here’s some pictures of the progress.

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Another day goes by…..

The spool gun didn’t arrive today and I didn’t feel like waiting. I’ve only got eight days left before we leave for our trip. The clock is ticking. I cleared out a spot in the garage and continued welding today. I’m getting better at welding aluminum. There are some nice welds in the work I did tonight, not many but there are a few.

I welded two strips of 1/8″ x 5″ wide sheet to the mounting rails today. I think I overheated the rack while welding these strips. The rack now has a pretty serious bow in it. I put some heavy stuff on it and will leave it that way overnight. Hopefully the bow is gone in the morning.

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