Paramount Automotive Restyling 19601 Full Size Camper Shell Contractors Rack for Long-Short Bed, black

Great product relatively heavy duty count on taking all day to install I bolted my mounting brackets into the lip of the bed drilled holes through the bracket and the inside horizontal lip and through bolted it used silicone between the bracket and the bed and silicone between the top of the bracket the bed and the fiberglass cap I would also recommend silicone all the seams/ joints an open gapps to stop water from getting to the inside of the tubing it's not powder coated on the inside and will Rust... after first winner removed it sanded it all and coated it with KBS Coatings rust stop and Crystal Clear top coat. re silicone all seams and reinstalled.. still looks like brand new to this day only because I put the extra effort to coat it.. in summary great ladder rack except for the powder coat but that goes for all of them I have the Harbor Freight version of this one on a 02 Dakota with aluminum cap.. (it's not as wide or as tall) I had to do the same thing.. sand it all down and coat it all with KBS..

All I can say is thank GOD I’m a welder and a metal fabricator, this thing was a pain in the arse, the instructions were total BS, so if you purchase this just go ahead don’t bother reading them, they will just totally confuse you. Look at the pics, lay it out and use common sense. Oh yeah and if you have a camper top on the truck bed, be prepared to have to cut it to fit over the outriggers ( the instructions don’t mention this till the very end in fine print lol). Good luck took me 3 weeks to get it built and installed. UPDATE: This thing is made out of cheap metal, started rusting under the paint with in a month of installing it. DONT PURCHASE !!!!

Thank you for fast shipping and good product. I will purchase more merchandise in the future.

I purchased the rack a year ago. 1000 pound static capacity? Empty the rack squeaks, shimmies and sways. I have experienced the same rust issues described (and photo documented) by others in these reviews. Being one size fits most, it rides way above my Toyota Tacoma roof line, but this is to be expected as it was designed everything from mid size trucks to taller full size trucks with high top shells. It has its flaws, but I intended from the start to use it for a while, be able to write a fair review of my experiences, then modify it to make it better. Lets start with the squeak, shimmy, and sway. No matter how much I tighten the bolts, it is a parallelogram. It has no side to side rigidity, and I can push it several inches by hand. My solution to this is that I had planned from the beginning to take it to the local community technical collage and have their welding class weld every seam. Now that I have driven with it for a year, I will soon do so. Cost will be under $20. The height. I need to cut about 4" off each of the leg tubes and drill new holes to attach to the brackets (despite my wanting to weld every connection, I think it is still going to be a wise choice to leave the mounting brackets bolted on so I can remove the rack easier if need be, Though I may still have the school welding shop weld them in place and add some gussets for added strength. Fitment issues: The vertical tubes block access to the side windoors preventing them from opening. The only cure for this would be to fabricate new mounting brackets which a tech school welding class can do with proper design and blueprints. (If I had the tools, and a workshop, I could do the metal work and welding myself, it is not difficult). More fitment issues: If you have a newer fiberglass shell like me, many have curved lips that redirect water over the edge of the bed side. the mounting brackets are not compatible with this and the only solution is to cut away a portion of the fiberglass lip to make room for the mounting bracket. If you run into this problem with your camper shell make sure you epoxy and repaint the cut area, or the fiberglass can absorb water resulting in de-lamination (I did so on my truck using some epoxy, and some factory touch-up paint (paint pen dabbed on paper plate, then brushed on to the exposed modifications) If you have that overhanging lip and do not do this your bed cap will ride around half an inch high resulting in rain easily getting into the bed. Rust issues: sadly, Paramount's supplier did not do a great job with their paint. Expect to have to sand and repaint the rack within a year or so. Because of previous reviews, I expected this, but my plans include welding the rack into a single solid piece, so it will need new paint after anyway. My personal solution will be sanding it down with flap sander, priming it with rust converting primer, then giving it a couple coats of Al's spray on bedliner purchased here on amazon. I will already be needing the bed liner for my new winch bumper and skid plates, so it is a perfect solution. At very least recommend several coats of a decent spray enamel and occasional touch up paint when your ladders or other toys and equipment damage the paint. My rust converting primer will be applied when the rack is finished in the welding shop, and the bed liner will be added later when other modifications are complete. Parts: The rack comes with a single detachable cross bar that you can put wherever you need it, but this only gives you one such cargo bar that can be placed over the cab, OR over the bed. I contacted Paramount and was told I could not order a single spare bar for my rack. I would prefer having additional tube in the middle of both the cab section and the bed section as my truck is for both work and play, and I will be putting a roof top tent as well as spare fuel, water cans, and other camping gear on the rack. my solution for this problem, when I have it welded, I am adding a couple permanent cross bars to the rack for more rigidity, then I am decking the entire rack either with wood decking held on by U bolts, or by expanded metal decking depending on what I can get my hands on. Assembly: Putting this together solo was challenging. The worst part was the side connection pieces as I needed to leave them loose to allow me to shift the rack around as I connected the remaining parts... A couple times things came loose almost resulting in a metal pipe being dropped on the truck. A few moving blankets from harbor freight are lifesavers. No truck damage as a result of parts falling. I did see some people complain about the poor assembly instructions, but ALL they are really needed for is identifying which bolt goes where by the pictures... The rest of the rack is fairly easy to figure out. Over all for the money it is not a bad rack, but it has a few issues that need to be addressed by the buyer as it is unlikely Paramount will make improvements to the rack. It is still several thousand dollars cheaper than a name brand rack that aside from being a weld together design is virtually identical to this rack. A li'l welding, and a weekend with some sandpaper and Rustoleum spray primer should resolve 90% of the issues with the rack for the average user, and can still be done for half the cost of a "name brand" rack or less depending on how much it costs in your area to get it welded. Some issues (my windoors for example) can not be gotten around without something (semi) custom made.

Came with all parts, but the instructions could use a little work. Vague in places and some of the photos are useless they are so dark. We still got it together in about an hour, though. It's held up great for hauling 16' garage doors. The top of the rail is small enough for most ratchet strap hooks to fit, so tying things down is easy. Rattles and squeaks a lot, so grease all the metal on metal while you assemble it.

Arrived in 2 large boxes, with all parts and materials. Easy to read and understand directions. Simple to put together.. . Youll just need an extra hand to help lift / adjust fitting. I bought and installed a separate, extra crossbar, And ran some off-road LED light wiring through the rack itself. At this cost how could you be disappointed?!?! Update: Purchased April 2016, since that time I've had ZERO issues. I've not even needed to tighten a single nut. I've hauled plywood, kayaks, ladders....I've exceeded the posted weight limit by 200lbs. No worries. This is honestly one of the best purchases I've ever made. I use it every single day in my construction job. I've received nothing in return for my review, I'm just a super happy customer Dont hesitate to buy. Update #2: July 2019... I just had to tighten the first nut since installation back in 2016. I very regularly carry 700+ lbs on it for work, and on one occasion, I put 1,200lbs on it. I just took back roads, went a bit slower and left my yellow strobe lights on the whole time. I also touched up some paint the other day with a can of blqck spray enamel. This is still one of the best purchases I've ever made.

Still haven’t got this thing together. The instructions are the worst I’ve ever seen. Says no drilling than the first thing they tell you to have is a 5/16 drill bit. No biggie except a 5/16 fits nothing on the rack. According to said instructions I got all my hardware, but it still doesn’t make any sense in some places. In one place they tell you to use a 5/16 x 2 1/2” bolt. There metric. Who does this? Stupid!! One upright came looking like a return, and the paint is all gouged up. Already buying bolts, and I haven’t even started. Now I’m questioning the quality. Unless you MUST have a universal rack RUN from this one. I will update once I get this pig installed. Well it’s installed. It’s a lot higher than advertised. I ordered a cab high topper based on the description before I received this. Topper is an 8 week lead time. Just put bolts were they make sense. My instructions were about 30% wrong. I’m going to have a friend tach weld every seem. The top rail started to come apart from the center gusset that holds them together even though I used an impact. My only real concern now is how the rear mounting plates sag, and the welds that hold the uprights. Now I’m afraid to put material on it. If your thinking you get what you pay for I get that. There was nothing even remotely local that would fit my truck.

At first glance I was pleased with the quality of the product. The rack as a whole seems pretty sturdy and well built. However after a few hours of trying to assemble it I realized that one of the support legs I was sent was close to 5 inches shorter then the rest, making it impossible to assemble. I contacted customer service and was given nothing but an address to send it back to. My experience quickly became a 300$ shipping issue, with not even as much as an apology on the sellers end. All in all for me this was a possibly good product with terrible product representation