DeWalt Ladder Rack Installation - 2005 Ford F-150

Installation of a DeWalt Ladder Rack on a 2005 Ford F-150

Today on this 2005 Ford F150 Long Bed, were going to be installing the Dewalt Industrial Grade Steel Truck Rack, part number DIGFFR360. Before we actually get started installing the truck rack system, we need to do a little bit of pre-assembly. And the first thing we need to do is just to figure out which side rail setup we need for our particular truck, so you want to go ahead and measure the length of the bed first and per the instructions, you determine the setup that you need for the side mounting rails. Now, the particular setup were using today is a long bed and its a 99-inch bed, so were going to need not only the long base rail, but two of the short base rails as well which when installed, this is going to look something like this. We can go ahead and start aligning the long base rail and what we want to do is go ahead and center it on the side rail of the truck not only front to back but side to side as well. Go ahead and do that for the passenger's side rail as well.

If you need to, go ahead and place some small marks on the bed rail itself to give you a quick indicator, because we are going to be pulling them off and on a couple times here. Next, its a good idea to grab a second set of hands and were going to go ahead and loosely assemble the double crossbar assembly by placing the crossbars through the holes in the front right hand left upright support. And what were going to do is actually put it on the bed of the truck into the side rails and that will help us determine the width that the crossbars are going to be in comparison with the upright. Next go ahead and take your side rails and slide them inside the upright. Ok, with them inserted, we want to go ahead and check our centering, side to side, and front to back.

Well use the marks that we made earlier and we also want to check our width on our uprights as well with the crossbars. Now again with the second set of hands here, weve got everything kind of aligned, weve got our width set up and we've pulled the upright bars as far forward as were going to want to position them on the vehicle. Once you got that determined, go to your top bar here again and we want to make sure that weve got equal spacing on the bars, so we have an equal amount of bar protruding pass on each side. Once youve determined that, align the closest hole with the holes in the upright. We'll use the torque head bolts here and go ahead and install them.

There are going to be four per side; two here and the two on the other bar as well. Ok, once weve got those installed, go ahead and tighten those down. Now, the reason we do this beforehand before we get everything aligned up is because what we just found out is when we tightened down our screws up here, it actually pulled our rails in quite a ways. So were on the inside of the rail right here now on both sides. So what were going to do is go ahead and pull these out and were actually going to slide it out an extra set of holes and that should put us more center on both sides.

Were next going to do another quick check just again to assure that weve got the front rack where we want it front to back on the bed and also side to side. We want to again both sides to be centered as possible and then again same on the front to back. Once youve got that set, were going to go the actual bed rail now, then well go back and look at the combination of the two here where the two merge. You can see the holes and the double rack assembly here and were not currently aligned with any of the holes in our base rail, so we need to move that just a little bit until we get the holes to align. And thats going to kind of determine our set position for our base rail. Once youve got that set, if you need be, you can go ahead and take a couple of the same screws that we had used on the double bars and just go ahead and loosely thread them in just to hold it in place for you. Go ahead and turn around and do that on the other side as well. Now, weve got the side rail aligned where we wanted. The next thing we want to do is go ahead and drill out the hole here at the rear attaching point. You can see weve got three holes here and we want to pick the one thats going to have the most clearance underneath the rail to get the hardware in place. Now, this particular Ford is a little bit tricky because theres not much of a lip. The manufacturer recommends that we clamp this down and go ahead and drill it now. So there isnt a lip for me to clamp to, Im going to go ahead and just pick my hole, use a marker, and mark the hole, pull my rail out, and drill as needed. Now, were going to be drilling with the 3/8 drill bit once youve determined which hole youd like to use. And were going to go ahead and do that on both of the rails. With the holes now drilled, I'll put the rail back on side to back inside the front uprights and drop our carriage bolt in. Ok and were going to secure the carriage bolts on the underside of the rail with the flat washer and lock nut provided. Now, this particular vehicle is a little bit unique and then if you look underneath the rail where were supposed to attach the nut and washer, is actually still encased by the inside of the truck bed. So weve got one of two options. You can either attempt to find the bolt underneath the vehicle through the fender well and try to put the washer and nut from up under there or I think what were going to do in this application, were going to drill an actual one edge hole right here in the side wall of the inside of the bed and use that as our access point to get not only the hardware on but to tighten it down as well. Ok, now that weve got the rear mounting hole mounted, we need to go ahead and do the forward one which is currently covered by the upright rack here at the front. So what were going to do is take it and just slide it back on the rail until we get the holes exposed and then well go ahead and repeat the process that wed done on the rear holes. Well next take the double bar setup and slide it back forward, and realign it on the sides here with the holes that we pre-determined earlier. Well need to take the front small block and get it in position and go ahead and mount it next. Now, the mounting in the front bar, there are no holes in it so we dont have to worry about aligning with the existing holes here, but what we want to do is at least make sure that we at least leave 1 inch at the front of the end of the bar here so that we can put our end caps in. You can make a mark here to determine where your one edge mark line is. Well go ahead and slide this back again. This time were going to mount it and drill our hole. You see, weve got two holes in the block here; we only need to use one of them. Now, weve got the two front short bracings in place. Go ahead and slide your front rack. Back over we had initially realigned it with the threaded holes in the main rail then well go ahead and install the hardware into those holes next. Into those threaded holes, were going to be using the small 3/8 bolts with the Allen head to them along with the lock washer. And the next thing were going to do is move on to the rear bar assembly. Were going to start by attaching the left rear swing to the left rear upright assembly using the same hole that we had used in the double bar assembly at the front. Just align the threaded holes at the bottom here with the holes in the upright assembly and go ahead and attach with two of the Allen headed bolts. Ok, we can go ahead and repeat that for the right side assembly. Ok, well go ahead and start and slide the rear assemblies on to the main rail just like we did at the front. Get an idea where youre going to want the rear rack to be positioned and then go ahead and locate where the nearest threaded holes are going to be in the main rail, and then that will give you an idea where were going to go ahead and set it. Do that on both sides and then were going to go ahead and allow that to set up our rear small bracket just like we did at the front. Ok, then again just repeat that for the driver's side setup as well. With both rear small brackets mounted, go ahead and realign your rear uprights in the pre-determined location that we decided earlier and go ahead and put the bolts in like we did at the front. Again well be adding lock washer to the small bolts. You can see on our setup here that our rear rail actually aligns to the three threaded holes, but we only need to use two of them. Next, were going to go ahead and install the removable crossbar here at the rear. And to do that, were just going to take the crossbar and align it with the pinholes on the rear upright here and insert the provided pins. Alright, the next step is to take the cantilever bars and were going to insert them into the front and rear channels. Now, the cantilever bars have two different ends to them. You want to make sure youve got them set in the right position. The one handle has an angle cut to it and the other end has just a straight cut. And youll notice the one side of the bar does have holes in it and we want these holes to be on the bottom. So the angle cut is going to go towards the ends of the vehicle, so we want the straight cuts to meet in the middle. And the holes that are in the bottom rail, well want to align with the holes in the upright. Here with the two bars on the upper right, we want to go ahead and take one of the sequin spacers and slide it over the bar, and then one of the U-shaped joints blinds, were going to insert this inside the bars over the drilled holes here. Align the threaded holes and the joints blind. Now with the holes in the bars, go ahead and clip one of the screws in and go ahead and continue that for all four of them, and go ahead and repeat that for the passenger's side setup as well. With those attached, were going to next take the threaded hole in the bars here. Slide the bar all the way forward until this threaded hole aligns with the hole in the bottom of the rear bracket and take one of these threaded screws and install it. Were going to need to use the provided Allen wrench to get up through the access hole and get the bolt up into place. Ok, well now go up to the front upright and locate the threaded holes on each side of the upright. Put one of the provided screws in and tighten it down. Now, these do not go into a hole in the crossbar here. This is going to actually be a pressure fit to hold it into place, so you do not want to over tighten these and go ahead do the other bars as well. Alright, finally, were going to locate the crossbar and the front crossbar hangar at same location as double and rear crossbar locations. Were going to attach them, snuggle in, and then go ahead and slide the assemblies onto the front cantilever bars. From there, well align the holes up in the threaded holes in the bars and attach with these provided screws. With that, that actually completes the install of the rack itself. The only thing we have left to do is go ahead and place the end caps into each one of the open holes at each one of the end of the tubes. With that, that will conclude the installation of the Dewalt Truck Rack, part number DIGFFR360, on our 2005 Ford F150.