Homebrew Con-Ferr Style Porthole Roof Rack Build

[H2OJoe]

Nice job Crawler! Happy New Year!

[97CargoCrawler]

Oh yeah, no drive thru's ever. No underground parking for me. I trim a lot of trees lately. However.....I follow people after they pull out of the drive thru's and suck the bag right out through their moonroof with my van-vac. Free food. Underground parking is available to anyone who gets in my way. Thump thump...ooops. And I'll bill you'all for the tree grooming services.

I love my van. There are a few drawbacks though. Like being able to see truck stop tricks paying for a lift.

Happy New Year!

[97CargoCrawler]

Just an update since I've now had the 90lb. rack floor in place for about 6 weeks:

Everything is awesome! Still no squeaks or rattles and I can no longer hear rain pounding on the roof (no headliner cargo van). I've driven in some real nasty winds and there is no adverse effects. Braking is not an issue with the large bore 3500 calipers and 11" drums in the rear. Overall the ride is quite pleasant. As far as handling goes the extra weight has had no noticeable effect on the drive. I'm still whipping around corners and driving it like its a racecar. I even have a 200+lb. winch and cradle hanging off the front.

It's difficult to determine which items decreased my mpg's the most (33" tires, 4.10 gears, rack, winch, etc.) but I now average 12mpg on my daily commute mix of highway, street and hill driving. That's down from 16mpg before my most recent lift and rack addition. I expect that to drop a bit more once I add about 250lbs. worth of bumper and spare tire to the rear. This van is my DD and those numbers don't bother me because I LOVE driving my van now. Traffic parts for me and I get a lot of envious looks as I pass lifted F-350's and Tundra's. Enjoying the drive in rush hour LA traffic is priceless.

I see a lot more roof racks than I used to.....looking down on everyone now. I just giggle at the crap I see on these "expedition" vehicles.

[WoodButcher]

Yepper,
you've done some nice work CC and have good reason to be proud of it. I had my doubts about the affect that rack would have on handling and such but I'm glad the suspension upgrades were enough to compensate.
I'll bet you'll need to keep spare idler arms now though!

So what's the next step, 4WD?

[Astrophysics]

Hi,
I had the Rack and Road folks install rails (72 inch ) long and got Thule cross bars for my solar panel on rear cross bars , and Yakima space case basket on front aero bars which is secured with square U bolts and nylon lock nuts.
AP

[97CargoCrawler]

Nice rack!

I'm still LOVING mine, even added a tent. Here's a few configs of the tent:







Please excuse my front end. Its apart for upgrades, one of which was ridiculed on this forum....DUAL HEADLIGHTS.

[LiftedAWDAstro]

I love that you have your own deck up there! That's awesome!

[astrozam]

A Safari tent on a Safari van...sweet!

Who would bug you about wanting more light??

[mdmead]

Aren't we still waiting for a write-up on those mirrors?...

[Astrophysics]

That is super nice roof rack. How did you route the +12 VDC and grond wires to connect the roof mounted lights?

I want to mount some roof lights but may get LED s so i can use thinner wires for the lower cuurent required by LEDs
.

AP

[97CargoCrawler]

Thank you. Back on page 12 you can see the bulkhead feeds I made to get the wires from the PVC conduit into the cabin. I have LED spotlights all around with incandescent up front and center. Equivalent high power long range LED lights are pretty expensive. I'm still building the interior junction boxes and control console. All of my fuse blocks and switch panels are from Blue Sea Systems. Expensive stuff but top quality. I imagine I will be updating this post once the interior wiring is finally done. It will be a while, its a huge mess. You will notice that I ran ground wires to each lamp instead of grounding to the rack. I did that to prevent corrosion at the ground point which would slowly crawl into the wiring. Instead the harness is completely contained in the conduit and sealed at each exit with liquid tight cord grips. Wires exit the conduit through a silicone tube that goes through the cord grip into the lamp housing. The wiring is not exposed anywhere outside the van to protect from UV damage. Every lamp is grounded inside the cabin. It was a lot more work but it's gonna last a really, really long time.

I installed a 300A alternator a few months back and now I'm routing all the juice. Here's the beginning of that:

[Astrophysics]

Very good ideas. I can get Blue Sea electrical parts at West Marine. My previous project van was a Chevy G20 full size 1994 window van. I had lots of electrical in that for interior camping mods, including electric water pump for sink, extra lights, dual BAT, with isolator ,etc.
I love my astro and plan to do some elect. Updates too.
Your van is an awesome DD and research lab on wheels for you to design and fabricate really neat ideas. Thank you for great photos and text write ups.
AP

[Astrophysics]

Hi, for flat wiring of small AWG you can route thru side window. I did this for wire from 15 watt solar panel.
AP

[crazyvanman]

Wow glad i stumbled onto this build. Apparently great minds think alike. I took my roof rack off to remove some roof rust; and my brother n law accidentally (supposedly) hauled it off to the recycler. But when i saw your post, i pulled out the old drawings i had made for the replacement rack; and except for the port holes and over all dimensions, it is almost the same rack. I am using aluminum in place of the flat steel you made the port holes from And i am having a neighbor with a CNC plasma cutter do vertical cuts in them. And since i have no way to weld aluminum i am using threaded inserts with torx head screws to attach them to upper and lower rails. Since i carry a lot up there I probably should invest in a welder that i can do aluminum with; and make it all aluminum as i am really trying to cut down weight everywhere i can.
I have several air tight/dust proof plastic containers that allow me to place 8 in the 108"x 50"x 8" rack and still allow me to close the solar panels down on it. I am also looking at some aluminum slats i found 4" and 6" (i think) that i may just attach to the roof as a base and just use the rack and solar panels to corral everything.
Nice build man. And also nice posts on the build. Has made me get the itch to get back on my build now.