How-to-Part 1
Ok, Nissans are big to start with, compared to Jeeps and especially Suzuki's. But that doesn't mean we can still store all the stuff we want into our vehicles.
This How To is for project Lil' Red Wagon, a 1993 Nissan Pathfinder. I started this project on a Saturday afternoon with a case of Corona and my trusty little welder. I bought the steel at a local steel supply house, not Home Depot or Lowes their prices are too high. The total steel cost was $28.50 and that also included some steel for another project you will see up here in next month's issue.
Well lets get started shall we. The purpose of the rack is basically to stow some camping gear, parts, and tools that we carry on the trails and for my other off-road vehicle that I tow. I priced out other racks by Con-ferr and wilderness and found them a little pricey for me, about the cost of a locker in my Sami. Well what do you do? Build your own, right?
I don't have years of welding behind me, in fact I'm still learning as I weld things up but found it to be a skill worth having. My welder cost me a whole $80 from Harbor Freight and it took me about 2hrs of practice till I was confident to build things. I do however posses the skill to test things out pretty good... don't we all...

What you'll need:

10 4' long pieces of 3/4" box steel in either 16 gauge or 1/8" thick.
4 pieces of 5" long 3/4 box steel same as above
A welder or someone to weld it up
8 pieces of 3" wide steel
Tie down eye hooks or the long rectangular kind for tie downs.
2 Pieces of 1" box steel

Position the steel in a box on the floor. Arrange it so there evenly spaced in the center for your floor. And weld up the sides then the inside pieces but DON'T weld the tops of the sidebars! You'll get that when you weld up the upper supports. Turn over and weld the other side.
*what amp rating you use depends on the thickness of the steel: For 16 gauge I use 45, for 1/8" I use 85amps.
Next up is weld up the upper supports on all four corners, use a 90* magnet here to keep them straight.
Lastly you need to place the 1" box under the cage so you can mount it to the factory roof rack. About 12" from either end is good.
Then weld the upper bars on. Well that's about it for the basket. We need to weld on the flat pieces and were good. Simple huh? Sorta.
Use the pics and the blueprint as a guideline to build your own. Next month we'll be finishing and mounting it on a truck that didn't come stock with a factory roof rack. Talk about engineering work...