Malone TradeSport Truck Bed Ladder Rack w/ Load Stops - Aluminum - 800 lbs

Video Transcript for Malone TradeSport Truck Bed Ladder Rack Installation - 2022 Toyota Tacoma

How's it going neighbors This is Ed here with etrailer.com and we're taking a look at the Malone TradeSport on our 2022 Toyota Tacoma. A cargo system is gonna help you on the back of your truck to increase the ability of things that you can carry, maybe things that are even longer than the length of your bed, especially having a shorter box like on our Tacoma here today. So you're able to put lumber, ladders, PVC pipe, taking advantage of the load stops at the top. In general, you can use it also for recreational items as long as your accessories work along with it, like kayak carriers or cargo boxes. The TradeSport is made of aluminum, so that's gonna give you corrosion resistance as well as being lightweight at the same time, having a very sturdy 800 pound capacity, allowing you to transport whatever you need on the back of your vehicle. As far as the kit that you have here, it is specific for the Toyota, but it is a universal kit.

So if you have a different model truck that you would also like to share this with, you can get more use out of the same product. The included adapter brackets fit right into the Tacoma track and fastens down using your bracket onto the top of the foot. The foot wraps around the edge of your truck bed to give you a nice good clamp and it's actually padded on the bottom. If you do have some different type of truck liners, it may require some modification to your truck bed liner in order for it to fasten correctly. But you know, you have to just pay attention when you're actually doing your installation to make sure.

If you have just the OEM bed the way that it came from Toyota, you shouldn't have any issues with that. Our aluminum uprights actually have T track channel slots as far as your inside space on there you go 3/4 inch, which is pretty common and you're gonna have 'em on basically both sides of your uprights and three sides of your crossbars. If you wanted to put anything underneath, you would have to load that up before you do your assembly for your uprights. But just keep in mind that it's still very flexible and easy to do while you are doing your assembly. Taking it all the way to the top here, we actually have our adjustable load stops where you can position 'em however you need and you can also insert those along your uprights and use them as a cleat or tie down point.

So your crossbar thickness is right at 1 1/2 inches. As far as how wide it is, it's three inches and it is kind of on the thicker side. So some accessories that clamp around aero bars or crossbars may not fit around it, so you might want to keep that in mind as far as your overall width is 72 inches and it does allow you to have some overhang without extending too far beyond the body itself. That works out well if you need to position things closer to the side of the vehicle. Our crossbar spread is set up right here, right around 30 inches.

The one of the great things about the track system is the fact that you don't have any fixed points so you can make adjustments wider or narrow. Only limitation is the length of the track itself, your overall height above the cab is about nine inches. So it's gonna give you plenty of clearance for your longer items, like your longer lumber, ladders or PVC pipe. The TradeSport is a really solid ladder rack cargo system for the back of your truck. Gives you really massive capabilities being able to put 800 pounds on the back of your vehicle. If I had to say anything that's a negative to it, it is a fixed system, so if you we inchesre wanting something that was shorter, there are other options that are available. Malone also offers the CrossBed, which is very similar to this as far as your installation, just, it only sits about eight inches above your bed, so gives you a lot more accessibility to the top of the bars. And if you we inchesre looking for an adjustable system, we have a lot of options on etrailer.com. Call up our customer service and our experts to get you set up with the right solution for you. So now that we've kind of taken a look at the ladder rack, let's go ahead and show you how to get it installed. We're gonna start our installation per the instructions by putting our T slots onto the back of our load bar support brackets. We're gonna grab our M6 bolt, one washer, we're gonna push these guys through and you want the upside, that's where your bolt's gonna go through. We'll just hand tighten the T-nut on the end of our our bolt just enough so we can still slide it in the track 'cause ultimately that's what we're gonna do. We're gonna repeat the process for this one as well. Gonna get a bolt, a washer and T-nut and twist that one right there. Do the same thing here. Alright. Now we're gonna get our low upright supports loaded up with our T-nuts as well. We're gonna go into the same process. We're gonna take one bolt, one washer, feed it through the hole, and then thread it into our T-nut. Whoop, there we are. Just enough so it bites onto the threads. It's still giving us enough room to slide it into the T track. We're gonna take our upright and our crossbar support brace and we're gonna slide our T-nut into the T channel. From here, we're gonna get everything aligned to fit into our T track and it does take a little bit of patience to get everything to slide in as it should, but just take your turn and you'll be able to get 'em to go right where they should. There we go. Then you're gonna take your six millimeter Allen key and loosely fasten everything down a little bit more. So we still want it to be able to slide so we can position it on the back of our bed. So as far as the spacing for our bars on our ladder rack, I'm basically going to use the distance from the end of the bed to determine where my first base is and I'm gonna space it where it comes up to about 30 inches apart from our center bar. So essentially from here I know that if I'm six inches from the front of my base here on this side and that side, I'm gonna come up even and it'll be the same with the rear support as far as the measurement in between. So you can do this based on the fact that it's lightweight by yourself, but I have assistance from my person here, Aidan. He's gonna help me get this aligned to the point that we already measured and we're gonna be able to slide our crossbar across the supports to kind of get it into position to where we need to position it. So now we're gonna fasten all of our hardware down and get our clamps installed onto our truck bed. Out of the box, this is how your clamps are gonna arrive. Because we have the track system on our Tacoma, we're gonna have to switch it over to our track adapter kit. So you're gonna take away the included bolt, but you're gonna still make use of the lock washer and flat washer and you're just gonna swap it over for the 100 millimeter Allen key bolt. And the size for that is gonna be a eight millimeter and you can use the included tool if this is just gonna be a permanent installation. But if you're gonna remove this and change your configuration a lot, it wouldn't be a bad idea to switch over to a bit using a bit for your ratchet, that's gonna make it a lot easier. Oh, skip the step. So we're gonna go lock washer, flat washer, and then we're gonna go to the top of our bracket and we're gonna make sure the upside where the channel is on the side of the track adapter is sticking up and we're just gonna hand tighten it into position. So now we're gonna go over to the truck and get this guy fastened down. So you're gonna take your clamp and insert it into the track and make sure you're making contact. There's only two positions where the clamps fit for this setup. It's gonna be right here between the upright support and on the very end closer to the cab. I'm gonna take my socket wrench, which is eight millimeter. We're gonna fasten this guy down to clamp it into position. We're gonna do the same thing with our front clamp as far as fastening everything down, making sure we're all aligned and do the same thing on the driver's side. Now that we have our uprights all secure, we're gonna install our load stop by sliding it right into the T track and with our knob here, we can raise and lower it to fasten it just to make sure we can fit it in okay, and now we're gonna put our end cap on. So for our end cap is secured with a nut and a screw. You are gonna take the nut, insert it in here, and then you're gonna screw in your screw. So I'm gonna drop it down there and give it a little tap just to make sure we can get the screw threaded and we're gonna insert it into our track and fasten it down with our Phillips hand screw. And once it's fastened, your end cap is secure and your load stop or whatever T track accessory you need is gonna remain secure on your crossbar. For my installation, that's where I'm complete. But your final step will be using the rubber insert to slide it into your T tracks to help reduce wind noise. It's one long strip and you're gonna cut it to size based on your configuration. And because it's just a demonstration, we're gonna just put this back in the packaging. So this has been a look at the Malone TradeSport on the back of our 2022 Toyota Tacoma. Have a great day.