Articles
If a picture's worth a 1,000 words then video is king. We had an opportunity to shoot some while installing a headache rack and rear hoop rack on a local customer's truck. What makes this a little different is the fact that the customer already had a tool box in the back. Our Heavy Duty bed rails (mounts) are longer, stouter, and designed to be compatible for tool box use. They provide a flat surface, front to rear, for the tool box to rest on. Choosing the heavy duty over our standard is a good idea, even if you don't plan to use a box. In this case we recommend bolting through both the tool box and our bed rails to securely sandwich everything together. So, in the video we demonstrate how to best position the box, measure and layout marks, and drill for the fasteners. Of course, if you don't have a tool box, installing our headache racks for trucks will go that much quicker.
The customer also had a late model GMC in which the factory engineers mysteriously designed an odd shaped hole in the plastic trim that surrounds the rear stake pocket in the bed. Starting in around 2015 Chevy/GMC trucks started coming with a non-rectangular shaped opening in the plastic surrounding the rear pocket. It's larger than the stake pocket in some areas and partially covers it in the front. Weird!
The problem with the design is it reduces the vertical stability of anything dropped down into the pocket. Our solution is to provide a pair of spacer blocks or shims that are placed in each pocket on the front surface, below the plastic that overhangs them. A strip of double stick tape will hold them in place when the rear hoop is out of the truck and not in use.
The blocks work quite well and serve as a good solution to an otherwise odd design choice by factory engineers. Once the rear hoop is dropped down into the pockets it is secured in place by a wing bolt through a factory hole inside the bed. No other trucks require a spacer block.
Dodge trucks also use a wing bolt to secure the hoop for quick and convenient removal. But, alas, aluminum body Fords (2015 and up) do not come with any such hole from the factory. The design is prone to crushing so the use of a wing bolt is not advised. For these we provide a hole in the base plate to drill through the bed and secure with a nuts and bolts provided. This downloadable instruction sheet for rear hoops explains how to install (and how installation differs) across various makes and model trucks.
Grab a cup of coffee, sit back, and watch how simple it is to install a headache rack and rear hoop rack by Spyder Industries on most popular pickup trucks.
