Homemade roof rack (bars)

[drcurran]

Has anyone made a set of home made roof bars for their CT? I want to have a set which does not need to hold a ton of weight, and after pricing them seems I could make a set. Was thinking wood. 2 X 6 (curved top) for the end pieces with a 2 X 4 cross piece probably mortis the 2 X 6 and the 2 X 4 is the tendon through the end piece. Just don't want them to look like "tobacco road" homemade. Let me know what you think or have seen. Thanks

Dan

[Crazylegs]

I welded mine up using 1" square tubing and they look Ok. I tapered the bottom end an capped it. works great but the only draw back I cant get in the garage any more.

[eatatjoz]

You could probably yank a set from a scrap-yard station wagon for five bucks.
If you just want to build one, wood will probably work, but I'd go with black pipe from the hardware store. (you may not be planning on putting that much weight on there though)

[vtx1029]

Depending on how wide you need it You could maybe modify a roof rack for a bike to work...

[Shadow Catcher]

At one point I used wood on a home made bike rack with gutter clips, and they worked as long as we had a car with gutters, just looked ugly.
For light weight I would use aluminum conduit or just plain galvanized pipe. As it is we eventually bought a Yakima roof rack with long and short bars. They are rubber covered and easy on canoe gunwales. The are currently about 70$

[eamarquardt]

Grant sells clips that allow one to mount a rack on a teardrop. That way you can add/remove the rack at will and it would still fit in your garage.

Cheers,

Gus