Bed rails access/drilling for chase rack

Hello everybody,

I'm about to start the fabrication of a chase rack, and was wondering what was the easiest access on the bed rails to drill & bolt the chase rack...

I want to use that flat area on bed rails (4"x6") near the cabin, can't have access from the bed, unless I cut some holes like @RDFTS, which is a good idea but I try to avoid "Hole sawing" my truck to death

Is there any "easy" way to access the underneath of the bed rails, I was thinking of removing plastic cover and use nutsert or even weld some plates so I can put/remove the chase rack easily...

So what would you do ?
@JtoU

The SVC tower mounts with 6 bolts per side on the inside edge of the rail.

I bolted mine from the top, piece of cake.

@t_j

You know what i think, just do not put anything to bed rails. Wait for your bypass rack to arrive and then start from that. Thats my advice
But if you have to do something i would weld long L shape metal support on top of rails and go from there. You want as much as possible contact surface on those rails. That rack is going to have lot of weight and it will move lot when you do off-road. There is reason why svc has now longer mounting plate on their light tower. What ever you do make sure it has good mounting points to bypass rack too when you connect it to that.

Position of the mounts is very important, if you want to be able to access the nut on the end of the bolt then it has to bolt down on the very inside lip of the bed side as the picture from @NE Ford shows above. The problem with that particular rack is the leverage of the fastener and plate against the welds for the foot plates, these welds tend to crack and tear out, I have seen 3+ of that rack with the same issue. If you go wider to clear a cover such as a roll-x then you will need to cut holes in the inside wall of the bed to access nuts, this isn't a major issue if you don't mind a little cutting. The next issue is the top of the bed rail is very thin, and bends and cracks easily, even with a large mounting surface on the top, you need to be able to repeat this on the underside of the bed rail which is rather difficult. The SVC solution seems interesting, i'd like to see how it stands up long term.


Here is a picture of my rack with the larger foot:

JtoU said:

You know what i think, just do not put anything to bed rails. Wait for your bypass rack to arrive and then start from that. Thats my advice
But if you have to do something i would weld long L shape metal support on top of rails and go from there. You want as much as possible contact surface on those rails. That rack is going to have lot of weight and it will move lot when you do off-road. There is reason why svc has now longer mounting plate on their light tower. What ever you do make sure it has good mounting points to bypass rack too when you connect it to that.

Click to expand...

As @JtoU said, if you do any off-roading DO NOT mount Light bars, chase racks , etc to the bed sides....Every truck I have seen that has done this ended up with cracked/split bed sides and/or bed supports after only a few miles.

The thin sheet metal of the bed sides will not support the weight and leverage.

Best bet is to mount any rack thru the bed bolts into the frame, with additional mounts if needed.

Cut some holes, huh?

I "drilled" 3 holes on each side through the rail cap and the thin metal below that. Basically set the rack where I wanted it, marked the holes and drilled them out.

I used grade 8 hardware and underneath used a washer (as big as would fit), a wing nut then a nylon nut. The wing nut because I was unable to get the nut snug enough with how tight it is under there. This was actually WSI install concept and I merely improved upon it. Original design broke like a ****.

The bed does move more than we think. I have a pretty broken bed right now but that light rack hasn't budge, its solid. I will be taking it off when we repair the bed so I will be inspection the rails and decide if I will put it back on or not.

To me the better way is to remove the cap and tact weld in a thick metal plate between it so its under the plastic rail and above the metal rail. Its still thin though.

If I didn't care for having a tonneau cover, I would forgo the light rack on the rails and have a bed cage instead that incorporated a light rack above the cab.

Let me know if you need pics

JtoU said:

Wait for your bypass rack to arrive and then start from that. Thats my advice

Click to expand...

Sano Dano said:

As @JtoU said, if you do any off-roading DO NOT mount Light bars, chase racks , etc to the bed sides....

Click to expand...

RDFTS said:

If I didn't care for having a tonneau cover, I would forgo the light rack on the rails and have a bed cage instead that incorporated a light rack above the cab.

Click to expand...

Well thanks for the precious advices, Didn't know there was so much issues of broken chase/light racks on bed rails...

With full SVC podium packages coming for me and @JtoU, I think everyone will agree that we are meant to do some serious offroading, so I have my answer...Bed cage...

That damn JtOu was right....again...He's always ******* right !!

Now since you started this thread, we want to see bed cage build thread. Sooner the better, as you know we're not that patient.
This would be something i would try out but i don't have any dimensions of the bypass rack nor don't know how much there is room on the side/behind of shocks. I've looked pictures and did some measurements on bed of truck, i used my tire rack drawings too since it has all the same bolt locations. This kind of main hoop should fit there and would be easily tied to rack where it's mounted to bed bolts. All other mounting places are marked. It does stay inside of bed which i think looks better and are easily removed for the winter. It has good clearance to back window too when it's inside of bed, i know now that those beds move a lot. If i would have installed my light rack for last trip it would have dented cab. Those bed marks on side of cab are plenty enough, so keep it farther away from it. Rendering should give you good idea or not