If you're after a burly bolt-in style bed rack for your '97 and newer F-150 capable
of holding up to 1,000 pounds, then you should definitely check out the Hauler Racks removable
bed rack for your rig.
Now, this thing will feature a durable anodized aluminum for the construction, in addition
to that category-leading weight capacity offered just south of 500 bucks, making this an excellent
value in the bed rack category.
Your installation will require some light drilling, so knock this one up to a strong
two out of three wrenches on the difficulty meter, and we will have some more detail on
that later in the video.
So bed racks are definitely a common modification for many truck owners out there because it
just makes the bed a little bit more useful and gives you the ability to haul more stuff
in the process.
Whether using this thing for work and hauling ladders, material, or lumber or maybe you're
just using it for recreational purposes and need to toss some bikes or maybe a canoe or
kayak up there, it's gonna give you the ability to carry more stuff while keeping the bed
free for other cargo.
Now, one thing you will encounter in the bed rack category is that you'll find some clamp-in
designs and you'll also find some bolt-in designs, and the differences between the two
are pretty obvious.
Clamp-on designs, meaning you don't have to drill into your bed.
However, the weight capacities typically aren't as high as some of the bolt-in designs, and
honestly, the security isn't there as well because it's simply clamped on to your bed,
meaning anybody can take that thing at any time.
Bolt-in designs, well, yes, you do have to drill into your bed, but, as a result, you're
getting more capacity and a little bit more security added into the equation as well.
So, now that you know a little bit more about why you might wanna go with the bed rack and
the differences between the two designs, let's talk about the Hauler Racks option that we
have here in this video.
And, again, you are looking at the 1,000-pound capacity version here, guys.
They do also offer an 800-pound version on the site as well.
It might save you a few bucks in the process if you don't need all of that capacity.
This thing will give a 58-inch span up top here, in addition to the eight individual
load posts as well.
So you can haul your ladder, in addition to lumber, kayaks, all that basically at the
same time thanks to the added capacity and wingspan of this thing.
Anodized aluminum for your construction overall here, guys.
Very, very sturdy design so you can make use of this and, again, keep your bed open for
other cargo such as your toolboxes or things like that.
Now, one thing to keep in mind here, again, south of 500 bucks is what you're looking
at for the price, making this a very, very good value.
Now, the Leitner design rack is another option on the site.
Some might argue it has a little bit more functionality, but you're paying nearly triple
the price as the Hauler Racks here and you're not getting quite the same capacity out of
that option as well.
So at the end of the day, if you're looking to haul a lot of weight for not a lot of dough,
the Hauler Rack is certainly gonna be a great option for you.
But let's switch gears and talk about the installation, and, yes, this is a bolt-in
design, meaning you will be encountering some light drilling with this job.
So, therefore, I did go two out of three wrenches on the difficulty meter and maybe a couple
of hours from start to finish before everything is rock solid.
To give you a better idea of what is expected with this install, here is AT tech, Nick,
with a walk-through.
All right.
We can start the assembly of the T-bracket.
We're gonna take some bolts, put lock washers on them and slide them up from the bottom
on the T-bracket and secure them with the square nuts.
And we have two T-brackets and four bolts in each bracket.
And once you have one assembled, we're gonna take this and we want it angled out.
And we're gonna slide it into the load bar.
And you got to get these square nuts orientated so that it'll slide down the rail.
It's a little difficult.
There's two, and there's the other two.
And we can snug these up.
We don't wanna tighten them, we just wanna make them snug so we have movement.
And we're gonna do the same thing for the next T-bracket.
And we can take this one and make sure it's angled out, and slide it down the other end
of the load bar.
And we're gonna snug these up again, not tight just snug.
Next thing we're gonna do is secure the load secure posts to the load bar.
In order to do that, we have to slide two more bolts on each end of the load bar.
So we're gonna stick one down here, put another one down here, and now we can put some of
our load securing posts on.
And what we're gonna do is come down to the end, put a lock washer on and a nut.
And we're not tightening any of this hardware up until the very end.
And then our last two secure posts are gonna go in the center of the load bar.
All right, we're gonna move on to the leg assembly next.
So, grab your two legs and get an inch-and-three-quarter bolt and you're gonna pick the side that has
the two square punches and slide a bolt down the center rail and we're going to attach
this angle piece here with a lock washer and a nut.
Put this aside for now.
I'm gonna do the same thing for our second leg.
Remember, the end with the holes gets the bolt.
Slide it down, put our angle piece on here, a lock washer and a nut.
All right.
Next, we'll need to attach our leg to our load bar, and we're gonna take two carriage
bolts and we're gonna slide the leg up into the load bar T-bracket and we're gonna put
a carriage bolt in each hole.
And we're gonna put a lock washer and a nut on each end.
All right.
We can do the same thing for the other leg now.
We're gonna slide the leg into the T-bracket that's attached to the load bar.
We're gonna put two carriage bolts in.
Some of these like to go in real easy.
And then we got two lock washers, two nuts.
Next, we're gonna put our bed mounts on the legs.
So we have a lip mount that's gonna attach to the top of the bed and then a bed mount
that's going to attach to the bottom floor of the bed of the truck.
It'll loosen these lock nuts up.
And what we're gonna do is just slide this.
And we're gonna do the same thing for the bed mount.
Just gonna come up from the bottom.
Tighten this guy a little bit so they don't slide down on us.
Okay, and we'll do the same thing for the other side.
And the bed mount.
All right, now that we have our rack assembled, it's time to put it in the truck, get it situated
and figure out where we want to mount it.
Now, keep in mind that everything is loose still so we can make the adjustments that
we need.
Our second rack positioned.
All right, at this point we're ready to mount our racks to the truck bed.
You're gonna need a tape measure, a marker, a drill and some drill bits, and the first
thing we wanna do is make sure we're doing everything square.
So we're gonna take a measurement off the back of the bed rail for our first hole, and
the center of the hole is at 11.5 inches.
So, I'm gonna go over to this side and make sure that we're at 11.5 inches.
And these dimensions are made up.
You can mount this wherever you want, just make sure it's the same on both sides.
Once you have it where you want it, we can drill a pilot hole.
Use the provided lag screws and we'll get this thing mounted to the bed.
Now we can do the same for the foot legs and we can take some measurements here off the
back of the bed, to make sure we're square.
So we need to come back a little bit.
Drill our pilot hole.
And the same thing for the other side.
All right.
Now we're gonna move on to the front rack and it's gonna be the same process as we just
did for the back rack.
We're gonna take a couple measurements to make sure that everything's square.
Exactly eight inches off the front of the bed.
And our final step here is to go through and tighten up all our hardware and make sure
all our racks are straight.
Now, I'm just gonna go through and put our support brace back in place.
It may be a little easier to move things around with this disconnected.
All right.
Once you've got everything tightened up, that's gonna wrap up your installation.
Be sure to check out more at americantrucks.com.
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