Roof rack for awning on pickup topper

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Enthusiast II

1,250
Hartford, SD
Took the topper of to paint it and mount the rack.

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Sanded the topper down. Figured I'd paint it to match the truck.

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And a little white.

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Now time for the rack. Since it isn't really going to hold anything more than an awning and maybe a solar panel occasionally. I decided to make it out of 3/4 inch black pipe and the mounts from 3/16 inch plate.

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Apparently I forgot to grab more pictures of the rack as I built it. Here it is painted and mounted on the topper.

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I have reinforcement plates on the inside that are slightly larger than the mounts to help distribute the load and stress on the topper.
 

ThundahBeagle

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Your topper paint job came out very nice as well. How long is your truck bed? I have Trac Rac Cap Rack on my topper, so there are basically 2 fat rails that go side to side, but no front-to-back rails. Thinking about getting a similar awning and figuring a way to attach...

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Enthusiast II

1,250
Hartford, SD
Your topper paint job came out very nice as well. How long is your truck bed? I have Trac Rac Cap Rack on my topper, so there are basically 2 fat rails that go side to side, but no front-to-back rails. Thinking about getting a similar awning and figuring a way to attach...

View attachment 201994View attachment 201992
Bed is a little over 6.5 feet. The awning is around 8 feet I believe. Thanks, it turned out pretty good for a rush paint job. Depending on if you put much on yours I'd see about running a bar or something underneath the cross bars and tucked up close to the mounts and attach the awning there. Or add a mounting plate to the mounts and just attach it in 2 places. I went with 4 mounting pads that had 4 bolts each (I'm confident that mine is overkill). But with it hanging out so far past the front of the rack I felt better with extra support. I tried to keep it as low as possible but it had to clear the door on the cab. If I had a 6 foot awning I could have kept it a little lower.
 
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ThundahBeagle

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The underside of my cross bars has a track in them - just as the topside does. I may be able to jury rig something. A 6 foot awning would be nice, but I wonder how much coverage it would really provide. If I space the 8 foot right, theres only 9 inches or so of overhang...

Next thing I know, I'll be looking for one off the rear, or a 270 degree
 

Escape_The_Insanity

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Vancouver, WA, USA
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Took the topper of to paint it and mount the rack.

View attachment 201946

Sanded the topper down. Figured I'd paint it to match the truck.

View attachment 201947

And a little white.

View attachment 201948

Now time for the rack. Since it isn't really going to hold anything more than an awning and maybe a solar panel occasionally. I decided to make it out of 3/4 inch black pipe and the mounts from 3/16 inch plate.

View attachment 201949

View attachment 201950

View attachment 201951

Apparently I forgot to grab more pictures of the rack as I built it. Here it is painted and mounted on the topper.

View attachment 201952

View attachment 201953

I have reinforcement plates on the inside that are slightly larger than the mounts to help distribute the load and stress on the topper.
Looks good.