I have a question about the support needed for a custom roof basket. Not sure this is the right spot on the forum for it, but I'll go with it. My 91 has some rust, so I'm tried taking the roof rack off. I managed to drill thru the rack, so it's trash. Now I'm trying to cut the bolts and drill out the nut-serts. My problem is can I mount a custom basket made of inch and a half steel square tube on the roof using the holes where the original bolts were, or do I need extra support to keep from caving in my roof?

 

I know this is an old post but....
I did the same thing with my 95 suburban. But I used metal emt conduit pipe to make the roof rack. Anyway, you can make or use pipe mounts and self tappers to afix the rack to roof. But make sure you use rubber washers and some rtv silicone around all the screws that go into your roof to prevent leaks from rain etc.

 

Thanks for the reply. I was thinking of flat plate with welded bolts and somehow covering the nuts so no one can remove them. Might even weld them on. Mount or weld the legs for the rack to the flat plate. And yes silicon the crap out of the holes.

 

Hey I just got a roof rack thru amazon. 64 inches long and about 39 wide. Comes with mounts that clamp right onto your stock roof cross bars. 122 bucks! I am installing 8 LED light pods on it. 3 on each side 2 on the rear. And a full size light bar on the front of the roof. I'll post pictures when it's all done and mounted. Knockin it out this weekend.

Also going to spray bad liner on it as well. The rack that is.

 

sounds exactly like what I'm doing this weekend, except that I'm tossing the stock roof rack and making brackets to attach the new one directly to the roof.

 

Also thru in 4 flush mount LED light pods in the front trim just under the bumper. Pics incoming asap

Before!

 

After!

 

Looks great. Definitely puts out some light, too.

 

Thanks brother

 

Which rack is that? There's like a million of them on Amazon, but I like the look of that one. Did you also get an extension?