Board rack for pickup bed

[Eboot]

I recently bought a truck with a 67” bed. In photos I have seen members with a bed rack for their boards.

My 185 is too long to fit straight in and was wondering if anyone has come up with some practical designs for a truck bed rack for longer boards?

[Wolf]

It's not a pickup truck but maybe it will inspire some ideas.  The forward part has vertical posts consisting of 1/2 inch electrical conduit covered with pipe insulation foam.  Four boards with bindings can fit in the slots, with the noses going between the car's seats.  The boards fan out toward the back to allow space for the bindings.  And the boards are tilted upward in the front to give clearance underneath to reach the shifter and hand brake.  By tilting the boards up like this, you might be able to fit longer boards in your truck bed.

The rest of the rack forms a framework to lay a plastic tarp in to catch water.

[Eboot]

Started with a different approach until I saw Wolf's design.
Basic construction completed, waiting for the rubber padding.

[Corey]

4 hours ago, Eboot said:

Started with a different approach until I saw Wolf's design.
Basic construction completed, waiting for the rubber padding.

Near stuff! What if you made the rear dowels only an inch or two long? Then you wouldn't need to open the tonneau to get the boards out the tailgate. Just lift a bit to clear the short dowels and slide out the tailgate.  

[Eboot]

6 hours ago, Corey said:

Near stuff! What if you made the rear dowels only an inch or two long? Then you wouldn't need to open the tonneau to get the boards out the tailgate. Just lift a bit to clear the short dowels and slide out the tailgate.  

Thanks Corey, great idea!

[TVR]

anyone else seeing the theme of the engineering types all liking the step-ins?

[Eboot]

Rack Completed.
They just slide into the pickup bed side wall, offset to allow for birds longer than the bed.
Final step will be to determine if any wall padding is required, or straps to hold the boards down.

@corey: great idea, works perfectly

[Quentin]

Looks like you have my same truck- F350…love what you did here! Would you mind sharing an instructional guide for this setup? 

[Eboot]

Thanx Q
I have a new Ram 1500 but the measurements are really relative to the truck bed.  I have a 5' 7" bed with a Rambox so the slots you see in my first pic are consistent across the bed - this may not be true if you have wheel arches in the back.

My Process:

• locate slots near the front and back that provide sufficient distance between them to allow for your bindings
• measure the distance from wall to wall, left to right (I removed 1/2 inch and then chamfered the wood to slide in snug)
• I happened to have some 2x6s which I used, you could as easily use 2x4s
• cut the planks to the required length and then chamfer to fit snugly
• fit the planks in the bed and then take your longest board and lie it on edge across the planks, with the one end in the front (closest to cab) right hand corner and the bed closed.  This will provide the minimum angle required to accommodate the length of your longest board.  Adjust the angle to provide as much slack front and back as you are comfortable with, and then mark planks
• keeping the same angle, move the board so that it is snug in the back left hand corner and mark the planks.
• the area between the marks on each plank is the area you can use for dowels, assuming you want to accommodate longer boards
• determine how many boards you want to be able to carry at a time on the rack (say x) and divide the length between marks by x-1: this provides the distance required available between boards for the desired number. Ensure that this distance is sufficient for your boards standing next to each other with bindings attached.  I allowed for 6 inches between boards giving me 5 boards.
• After removing the planks I marked the right hand side starting point of the first board on each plank, then measured and marked the 6" marks across the length (5 marks on each plank)
• I drew a center line of the plank along the length between the marks
• after some exploration i determined that leaving 1/2" between the dowels holding the boards was sufficient
• I marked off a second mark at 1" after each 6" mark: using 1/2 inch dowels this would leave 1/2" between dowels
• I then predrilled each mark to 2 inches depth and then drilled the dowel holes to 2" depth using a 12.5 mm drill (just less than 1/2")
• I cut the front long dowels to be 12" (10 + 2) and the back short dowels 5" (3+2)
• I glued the dowels in place after tapping them soundly to ensure no air bubbles were caught in the spaces at the bottom (the fit should be pretty tight)
• finally i ordered some 3/8" rubber which i cut (3" x 1.5") and drilled similarly to above (1" centers) and 12.5mm drill, sliding the small rubber mats over the dowels to provide a base for standing the edge on.

Let me know if you have any questions and good luck.