Building a headache rack with rotating light bar

I love lights above the cab but hated the idea of the clearance issues. I already have enough trouble fitting into parking garages and under low hanging trees. A few years ago I thought about building a rack with a rotating light bar, but just never seemed to have the time to build it. I also wanted a rotating light bar because in the up position I could have all four lights facing forward lighting up the road and in the stow position, have all four lights facing rearward to light things up. With the help of my dad who has all the right tools like plasma cutter and heavy duty welder, we built it. With a 20' piece of 1/8" wall 2x2 square stock and a few pieces of various scrap plate steel laying around we got to work.

I wanted a low profile headache rack that followed the body lines of my truck. I also wanted the lower crossbar at the right height to prevent the Grizzly quad from tap-tap-tapping on my rear window. Futher, the rack had to sit back from the cab because during extreme flex, there isn't a whole lot of room between the bed and cab.

We started by building two base plates to fit into the front stake pockets. This required a bit of creative effort with pieces of angle iron and a whole lot of measuring. That was pretty much the hardest part of the project as everything else was just straightforward cutting and welding.

I decided to go with four KC HiLights 57 series rectangular lights. Their 100W Halogen H3 bulbs produce 167,000 candlepower a piece. I have installed two Hella 500s behind the grill and I'll say that KC has the better wiring kits. So much more straighforward and makes for a clean install because all the pieces are pre-wired. You literally just run the wiring and plug things in. This install was pretty easy because I already have a battery in the bed for my 1500W inverter.

Click on a pic for higher resolution images.

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