Assembly! Super easy. No special tools. Purely bolt together with easy to follow instructions complete with pictures and tips. I had a couple of minor hiccups but they did not stop me from completing assembly and the owner was very responsive to my questions and feedback from what I had experienced.
First I got the handles set up to be installed.
(Tip: when installing T-Slot hardware, install the bolts and T-Nuts first. This makes it very easy to just slide things on.)
Next I laid out these corner brackets. The small hole in the middle needs to be in the bottom of the bracket. This allows water to drain out.
While I was installing these corner brackets on the column pieces I ran into a minor issue. As you can see the bolts were not making contact and were bottomed out. As you can see in the images below the bolts were supposed to be only 1″ long and I received ones that were a 1/4″ too long. I sent this to the owner and he said I must have had received an earlier design set and would ship out the right length bolts right away. In the meantime I used some washers and split rings I had laying around.
Starting to takes shape. Columns, side braces, corner brackets, and handles all installed.
This is how the the columns and side braces are connected to each other.
Now the top rails and top braces are installed.
As I mentioned above, installing the bolts and slot nuts makes for an easy install of parts. The bed rail attachment plates slide right on the end of the columns.
The off-road reinforcement plates and bed rail attachment plates have been installed.
Another minor issue I came across was that any spot that was drilled or slotted to accept a bolt on the bed rail brackets and the off-road reinforcement plates was sized appropriately before powder coating. After the coating process was complete the ID of these holes were too small to accept the hardware. I used a round file to remove some of the coating and then my issue was resolved. I again provided this feedback to the owner and he would be making an adjustment to the hole size to account for the coating.
Part 1 shows the condition I received the package in and how it was packaged.
Part 2 shows all the parts I received and unwrapped.
I think it’s a very clean looking rack! Thanks for sharing the install process.