I've been threatening to build a roof rack for more than 5 years now and I'm getting tired of lugging around my big box of recovery gear in the back so finally, design and fabrication begins. With my 2nd gen 4runner I built a rear bumper with a tool box but I probably won't get around to building one of those for a while. So this time, I'm going to build a low profile box that will sit flush with the top of a new roof rack. Also, for the past year I've had a couple LED backup lights sitting in my drawer so it's time to mount those too.





The front is to the right in the pictures and the box is shown without the cover, otherwise it wouldn't look very exciting. I wanted this thing to be low profile sitting flush with the top of the factory rails but with a 4" tall box, that's not going to happen. It'll end up being a couple inches above it. Also, the lights are 5" tall so they'll be a little taller than the rack itself.

The main rails of the factory rack use a channel that allows the cross beams to slide back and forth. I'll use these channels to interface with the 4 vertical brackets you see on the sides. Very simple, just 2 bolts at each corner. Total weight without the box is 23 lbs. The box will be made from aluminum since I have a friend who has a sheetmetal brake and can tig Al for me. The rack itself will be steel because I can do that work and I don't want to bother him too much.

For now, I'm still trying to figure out what kind of latches to use for the cover of the box. Ideally, they'd be draw latches that snug the cover against some seals, but also low profile and lockable. The last requirement is the hard part because I don't want to use padlocks because they'll clang around and make noise.

I'll probably get material sometime in the coming week and then start fabrication in 2 weeks.