My Homemade Off-Road Cargo Rack

[TeocaliMG]

As the title implies, I modified my already custom bike rack to double as a storage rack depending on kind of trip we have in mind.

If you haven't seen it already, I detailed the project of converting my rocky mounts back stage II swing out bike carrier to work in conjunction with my TrueNorthFabrications bumper. (see here).

This allowed us to bring our mountain bikes on some level 6 and 7 trails in Colorado (Pearl Pass, Red Cone, Schofield Pass) with no problems due to the high clearance and increased stability (being mounted simultaneously at the hitch and bumper). (see more on that trip here)

With Baby number 2 here (2 under 2), and another big road trip planned for this summer, it was clear that I was going to need some external storage. Losing a whole seat worth of storage to a new car seat and baby is no joke!

Options are roof rack, bumper mounted cargo or trailer. Since I like using my flip back soft top often, don’t have a trailer, and already invested some handy work in a hard core bike rack, I decided to make a storage platform that could mount in place of the bike mount rails.

Like the bike rack, this platform sits almost 36" off the ground, is pinned down at both the hitch and bumper while driving, and can swing out on the bumper pivot when the tailgate needs to be opened. The platform bolts on using 8 bolts in place of the 8 bolts which would normally hold the 2 bike mount rails on.

I opted to make the rack large enough to fit our yeti cooler long ways, and side by side with another large container. Weight is definitely a concern, the swing out is long and puts a lot of leverage on the pivot, more than just a spare tire would. Given the size of the platform, it would be easy to load 200-300 lbs on it, but if I want to be able to swing it open without unloading anything I am going to try and keep my payload around 100 lbs or less. My Yeti 65 cooler alone can push 90 lbs loaded so I may opt to keep that inside the Bronco and throw two large tubs on the rack, I can load it up tall and wide with lighter gear and supplies.

The design is simple, the structure is made of 9 1" square steel tubes (0.0834" wall). The load surface is a simple expanded steel mesh, and I also used 4 aluminum square tubes within the steel frame to better support the expanded steel mesh from below without adding too much unnecessary weight.

The whole platform is 54 lbs. Definitely overbuilt for a target payload of 100lbs but like I said, that’s more limited by my mechanical sympathy for the bumper pivot.

I also took this time to beef up the pivot for the rack side of the swing out. The original rockymounts backstage II chassis was never intended to be used in such an extreme application, this started to show in Colorado.

You can see that the top and bottom of the pivot are just stamped steel sections, and the top joint in particular lined up with the threads of the pivot bolt. This obviously got all beat up and despite having the bumper mounted swing arm to add rigidity the whole rack was still able to wiggle excessively at this joint. Easy fix, I made fat steel spacers which were a tight fit to a new longer M12 bolt. Long enough that the shoulder of the bolt extended through the top pivot. We'll see how it holds up this summer, but it appears to be pretty rock solid.

I also 3D printed a new handle that is more convenient to use than the stock one, and if damaged from dragging the tail over something will hopefully just bust off one prong and leave it otherwise functional.

Departure angle is still pretty good, and the height will make a nice table at camp.

Swing out position:

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[TeocaliMG]

Here's a picture loaded up with just the cooler and stroller for a short test downtown:

 

[Mrchoochoo]

As the title implies, I modified my already custom bike rack to double as a storage rack depending on kind of trip we have in mind.

If you haven't seen it already, I detailed the project of converting my rocky mounts back stage II swing out bike carrier to work in conjunction with my TrueNorthFabrications bumper. (see here).

This allowed us to bring our mountain bikes on some level 6 and 7 trails in Colorado (Pearl Pass, Red Cone, Schofield Pass) with no problems due to the high clearance and increased stability (being mounted simultaneously at the hitch and bumper). (see more on that trip here)

With Baby number 2 here (2 under 2), and another big road trip planned for this summer, it was clear that I was going to need some external storage. Losing a whole seat worth of storage to a new car seat and baby is no joke!

Options are roof rack, bumper mounted cargo or trailer. Since I like using my flip back soft top often, don’t have a trailer, and already invested some handy work in a hard core bike rack, I decided to make a storage platform that could mount in place of the bike mount rails.

Like the bike rack, this platform sits almost 36" off the ground, is pinned down at both the hitch and bumper while driving, and can swing out on the bumper pivot when the tailgate needs to be opened. The platform bolts on using 8 bolts in place of the 8 bolts which would normally hold the 2 bike mount rails on.

I opted to make the rack large enough to fit our yeti cooler long ways, and side by side with another large container. Weight is definitely a concern, the swing out is long and puts a lot of leverage on the pivot, more than just a spare tire would. Given the size of the platform, it would be easy to load 200-300 lbs on it, but if I want to be able to swing it open without unloading anything I am going to try and keep my payload around 100 lbs or less. My Yeti 65 cooler alone can push 90 lbs loaded so I may opt to keep that inside the Bronco and throw two large tubs on the rack, I can load it up tall and wide with lighter gear and supplies.

The design is simple, the structure is made of 9 1" square steel tubes (0.0834" wall). The load surface is a simple expanded steel mesh, and I also used 4 aluminum square tubes within the steel frame to better support the expanded steel mesh from below without adding too much unnecessary weight.

The whole platform is 54 lbs. Definitely overbuilt for a target payload of 100lbs but like I said, that’s more limited by my mechanical sympathy for the bumper pivot.

I also took this time to beef up the pivot for the rack side of the swing out. The original rockymounts backstage II chassis was never intended to be used in such an extreme application, this started to show in Colorado.

You can see that the top and bottom of the pivot are just stamped steel sections, and the top joint in particular lined up with the threads of the pivot bolt. This obviously got all beat up and despite having the bumper mounted swing arm to add rigidity the whole rack was still able to wiggle excessively at this joint. Easy fix, I made fat steel spacers which were a tight fit to a new longer M12 bolt. Long enough that the shoulder of the bolt extended through the top pivot. We'll see how it holds up this summer, but it appears to be pretty rock solid.

I also 3D printed a new handle that is more convenient to use than the stock one, and if damaged from dragging the tail over something will hopefully just bust off one prong and leave it otherwise functional.

Departure angle is still pretty good, and the height will make a nice table at camp.

Swing out position:

Very nice job. You are very talented and skilled to fabricate something that detailed. I love it

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