Maybe in the old skewered Quick-Release axle days. The thru-axles take a bit longer, especially if they require an allen head tool (some do, some don't)
Exactly.
Could you share more? Seeing what you did but not figuring out how you did it. Like the no weld / no bolt?? For many other ideas/uses. I use magnet/bases for some things like this but that shouldn’t work in your case.This is how I did it using a no-weld method, it works great for my gravel bike and my mountain bike.
Oh nice, I don't have a welder but can probably use a drill press to drill some holes through some steel to attach them together using small bolts and nuts... Will look for the delta thru-axle parts though... Thanks.You could do this many different ways, what we decided on was a 4ft long piece of 1/4 or 3/8inch thick steel bar 2 inches wide from Tractor Supply. Then it was welded to two pieces of angle iron cut to act as L-brackets, three inches tall. What is not shown is inside the wall of the bed, a second piece L-bracket similar to the one welded to the cross bar, but with nuts welded to it, that is what the bolts go to on the outer angle iron. We made those first, cutting them narrow enough to pass into the space through the wiring door directly above. Held them in place and outlined the existing holes in the bed to center the holes where the nuts would go. We used M8 bolts and had to drill out the existing holes to a larger diameter. Once we had the plate inside the wall of the bed lined up and drilled we determined where the hole in the outer plate would need to be to pass a bolt through snugly. After that we welded the cross bar to those (you could use bolts here instead, or if you had a longer bar and were careful perhaps you could bend the cross bar to 90 degrees on both ends instead). The Delta Thru-axle pro hitch mount is aluminum, so we made a L-bracket to bolt to that, so that we could weld it in place. You could just bolt the delta part down to the crossbar, but you would need to raise it further from the bed to fit the bolt head or nut. Lastly we attached the thru-axle pro hitch mount to the bike, and put the bike in the bed with the cross bar installed, found out where we wanted it positioned and marked the location on the crossbar, took everything apart and welded it in place. The Delta Thru-axle parts could absolutely be fabricated as well if you wanted, but I had already bought them. The other materials totaled around $60-80, the delta parts were I think $60 each. The most time consuming parts of this was definitely fitting the two L-brackets.
For real, it takes seconds to remove the front wheel. Heck, if I'm just bringing my one bike, I just remove the front wheel, that way I can turn the handle bars sideways and I can fit the entire bike in the bed even with my tonneau cover on, lol. If I'm bringing 2, then I'll use the hitch bike rack I have.
First I located the bracket and match drilled into the bed,( I selected the lower bumpout so the top of the bikes doesn't stick out above the cab ) then using AMJOY rivet nuts into the bed I attatched the brackets to the bed. I use the Rocky Mount adapter ( My home town of Grand Junction )for axel bikes. I open the tailgate slighly when using the adapter because most bikes are too long to ride with the gate closed.
Nice setup, but I've always just used the bike carriers that hook up to trailer receiver.I had been wanting to come up with a way to ditch the hitch mounted rack for a while. The hitch rack works well but obscures the back-up camera, makes parking more difficult, hurt mpg with bikes loaded and messed with the aesthetics of the truck on a day-to-day basis. This solution was fabricated using a couple of the Delta Thru-Axle Hitch Pro adaptors and some stock steel pieces from tractor supply. Unintentionally the thru-axles can not be removed from these forks without the tailgate down, so locking the tailgate works as a kind of lock for the rack. Decided to paint the bar black instead of silver as I plan to get a spray-in bedliner soon.
Yeah I've got three kuat transfer racks, the 1,2,& 3 bike (plus a one bike extension to make the 3 a 4) but they just make the truck look busy when you're not carrying bikes
