25 Nov The Project X Story: Chapter V, Cat On A Hot Tin Roof (Rack)
Hope you all had a Happy Thanksgiving! We have reached Chapter 5 in our 8-part build thread for Project X.
Today, we’re going to take a closer look at Project X’s custom roof rack. We started out by constructing the two main components of the roof rack – the stronger, larger lower bar, and the mounting brackets to hold that bar to the X5 itself. The larger bar, as with the front bumper, was bent in house. The brackets, however, were cut from the CNC mill. After placing the brackets and drilling the mounting holes, we put the bar through the brackets and came out with this:
Since we wanted to add some height to the roof rack, we chose to go with a second bar placed above the first. The upper bar would be smaller in diameter and in all other dimensions as well, giving the roof rack a bit of a tiered, layered look that continued to add height to an already-tall vehicle. So, just like the other bar, we bent up our bar to fit on the rack:
We slid the second bar into the smaller holes on the mounting brackets (which, surprisingly, is a lot harder than you’d think), and then set about fabricating two mounts at the rear of the roof rack to hold the back end of everything together firmly:
After placement was finalized, we added some cross-members for support and set about welding everything together. After all, it will add structural rigidity to the roof rack. Besides, there isn’t a need to disassemble the roof rack at any point anyway. If you thought welding was awkward with a single piece of pipe, try welding a hundred-pound-plus structure that needs to be constantly rotated and moved around. Team work makes the dream work, folks:
As always, the welds turned out rather pretty:
And once the welding was complete, we have ourselves a fully complete roof rack.
But wait! It’s not complete yet. Since the new wheel/tire setup came with a full-size fifth, and since that wheel/tire combo isn’t able to fit in the X5’s normal spare-tire location, we set about constructing a tie-down (screw-down?) on the top of the roof rack. A few more welds later, here we have it:
And here’s a project update for ya. With the Big Three complete in terms of fabrication, we put everything on the X5 to ensure fitment once again (can you tell we like triple-checking everything?), and snapped a quick picture.
With the heavy-hitting metalwork out of the way, the time has come to start working on the details, the little things that will make Project X go from a head-turner to a neck-snapper. Have a great weekend!
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