Can I set up a combination roof cross bars and bed support?

[pghDL]

Hello!

I'm getting my maverick this month, and was thinking through what I'd use it for. I do a lot of personal home renovation, and while the bed seems fine for 8' and *maybe* 10' boards, I do occasionally need to pick up something longer like some 12' or even 16' boards. I don't want to kit out my maverick to handle something that I'd only need to do like 1-2 times a year, so I'm not interested in some huge lumber rack or some really expensive solution, my goal is to add as little to the outside of this truck as possible (I know some people basically want the opposite of that, but I'm not them).

What I figured would suit me just fine (if it would work) is having a set of 2 standard roof crossbars, and then one bed bar (likely DIY, possibly removable) at the roof crossbar height at the back of the bed. Normally, this would be frowned upon with most pickup trucks as the bed moves independently from the cab and I understand that that can damage things if you span both of them with a load. However, the maverick is a unibody, so this shouldn't be an issue.

Would this work? Is there some reason I shouldn't do this? Is there some better solution I'm missing? Why can't I find anyone else talking about a setup like this?
Thanks for any help!

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[Maverickman74]

Totally get your needs. My wife is in the same thing light home construction. I just put a set of home made crossbars on our topper. It should be adequate for a decent amount of short boards or a few up to 12ft. I will eventually be adding a single front roof cross bar to make it better for the 16s and 20s.
If I were you I would go with dual bed bars and a single roof bar. The roof bars mount to painted metal and that scares me for future rust. The bed bars, home meade or not are usually easier and cheaper to get in heavier duty. Like the TracRac bars on my old Comanche are rated for 600lbs and I have had a lot more than that on em. Then when things get long or you buy a canoe you got the front one to keep things a little nicer.

 

[tom_tucker]

Cheap cab roof cross bars (see my sig.) and bed extender in the upright position on the hitch?

 

[pghDL]

Totally get your needs. My wife is in the same thing light home construction. I just put a set of home made crossbars on our topper. It should be adequate for a decent amount of short boards or a few up to 12ft. I will eventually be adding a single front roof cross bar to make it better for the 16s and 20s.
If I were you I would go with dual bed bars and a single roof bar. The roof bars mount to painted metal and that scares me for future rust. The bed bars, home meade or not are usually easier and cheaper to get in heavier duty. Like the TracRac bars on my old Comanche are rated for 600lbs and I have had a lot more than that on em. Then when things get long or you buy a canoe you got the front one to keep things a little nicer.

Thanks for the insight. I hadn't thought about how the roof crossbars might interact with the top metal of the truck. I'll keep that in mind when I go to choose something.

Cheap cab roof cross bars (see my sig.) and bed extender in the upright position on the hitch?

Thanks for the cross bar recommendation! They look nice, and I assume if you're recommending them they're working out well. As for the bed extender, whenever I see those upright they always look super rickety, but I've never been able to see one set up in person, so it may actually be fine and a good solution. I'd welcome any stories from people who have tried a setup like that before.

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