While I wait on supply from Front Runner to come in, I need to be able to haul sheet goods and boards on top of the truck, so I took it to myself to devise some sort of solution from the local big box store.

Very simply a single 10' piece of green unistrut, with a couple 2" pieces cut off to raise the rail over the arch of the roof, then two 52" pieces cut to form the bars. They're secured in the factory roof rails with unistrut spring nuts.

Pretty simple solution for under $40.

 

Well done. I used unistrut on my kayak trailer build and love it for its strength and versatility. Didn't know the spring nuts would work in the roof channel - will have to go check that out.

I am contemplating building a rack from extruded aluminum - actually have most of the design and materials identified just figuring out which mount options to use.

 

Ah nice! I was contemplating doing the same. Would you be willing to share your design?

The spring nuts required a little bit of grinding down so they'd fit in the rails, but it didnt take much.

 

Sure happy to share - let me finalize and I'll message you some info. I am basically trying to solve all the problems I see (just my opinion) with the existing rack options:

OEM Rack - like this design the best and plan to copy it as much as possible but don't like the height, the Thule aero bars as crossbars don't strike me as the best option for a full rack, and the price and availability is a blocker for now. Love that it follows the body lines so tapers to the back - looks clean and nice design in the back to conform around the GPS antenna/camera fin.
FrontRunner Full Rack - the full length requires you to remove our perfectly fine roof rails and replace with that hideous (again, my opinion) backbone frame they use plus its square so doesn't conform to roof lines and sticks out (overhangs sides) more in back and its high like the OEM rack though better I think then OEM - also not available right now
FrontRunner w/OEM Rails Rack - better looking than the full rack as it uses factory roof rails but has all the other drawbacks of the Full Rack plus its 2 feet shorter than their Full Rack and also 2 feet shorter than the OEM rack so you lose a lot of cargo/rack space
Rhino Rack - NO NewDefender option yet but they look nice - you could buy a platform and adapt to fit but the 49"x84" platform (which is close to OEM size) is $1K alone without mounting feet/HW and its square so see issues noted before about that - I also personally don't like the fact that the tracks run the length of the rack vs across the rack like most other designs
Voyager - I prefer a flat rack and personally think flat racks look better on the new Defender - have had the tube/cage style for a while so looking for something different - plus its not available either and the most expensive option out there i think at $2300+
ARB - no NewDefender options yet - also assume it will be square but we'll see

Did I miss any?

We'll see about building - still up in the air. Costs for materials to build look to be in the $500 range and it should come in well under the OEM rack's 90lb weight for the same size with more cross bars and attachment tracks/options. Just want to make sure I can do it so it looks 'finished' and not an erector set of parts.

 

I just ordered the Voyager rack last week, they said about 6-8 weeks until delivery. I almost pulled the trigger on the OEM rack but I don’t know, the Voyager rack just felt right. I love Landy718’s solution, it’s always impressive to see how people adapt and overcome challenges.

 

I’m ordering the voyager as well after waiting in vain for arb to offer their new base rack for us. Arb confirmed it’s a no go this year. Don’t like the height of frontrunner or oem, so lower profile voyager is it. Also like that you can attach so many things to the side of the voyager vs having to climb up on the oem.

 

So here's where I currently sit. Ordered a bunch of t-slot rail and am going to attempt to craft a proper platform. It wasnt a cheap solution, so hoping it becomes the best and final.

Here's a quick mock-up. Will ultimately be black anodized.

 

great design aim thinking of making one myself what was the total cost and weight bearing? planning on putting roof top tent .

 

was planning on smittybilt platform rack 4.5 by 5.5 and putting on 1inch rubber spacers and use unistruct nuts to hold.
it seem more durable than the oem rack.

 

$700ish.

Will post a post-mortum build list once I've gotten it installed and can confirm all connections.

I'm currently entering it into Fusion to get a reasonable estimate of load capacity. Will report back with that as well.