Has anyone ever tried or even thought about using truck bed rails for a roof rack?
The bed rail protects that are 2 inch tube with feet on each end. I thought about attaching those to the jeep roof and then building a roof rack off of those. I think they would be sturdy and would only have to drill a few holes in the roof.
any thoughts or experiences would be appreciated.
thanks

 

Honestly those truck bed rails are for show they are thin wall tubing.

 

I second that. I had some on an s10 and I think together they weighed like 10 pounds. But I wouldn't use them anyway. I think the big round rails would be too goofy

 

It was just a thought. I have been debating on the best way to go about it. My Cherokee didn't come with a factory roof rack.
Thanks for the input.

 

Only 3 or 4 million of them in junkyards.

 

Don't exaggerate. Can't be more than a million in the junk yards.

 

Guys let's be realistic. There's about a dozen near me, I'm only one city. So probably about 1.5 million

 

You could go aftermarket some of them mount to the roof drip rail things.

 

They are everywhere in the junkyards. I even have one of the short rail roof racks. I am just not sure about drilling that many holes in the roof.

 

The stock roof rack uses that many holes to spread out the load along the length of the roof. If you attach truck bed rails to the roof rack by attaching just the ends as you seem to be saying, you'll put all the load on just four points. The sheet metal isn't that thick. Put anything substantial on those rails and you'll bend the metal. It'll leak. It may pull right out of the roof.

Truck bed rails are made to mount on truck beds. The top of a truck bed wall is a lot stronger than our roofs. You can stand on a truck bed wall. Our roofs buckle if you stand on them. To put things on the roof, you have to spread out the load.

 

The metal on top is definitely thin. I really don't have the need to put anything on top. It would just be for looks and possibly to mount lights. I am probably just gonna plasti dip the top of my jeep, where the paint has faded and call it good.

Thanks

 

If you don't, someone else will...

 

If you want a old school bar to mount lights on look at carr brand.Like this http://www.seriousoffroadproducts.co...rr-XJ-MJ-ZJ-WK and thinking about it you might be able to run a 2nd one on the rear of the jeep if you want more lights lol.