Aries AdvantEdge Headache Rack - Chrome Powder Coated Aluminum

Video Transcript for Aries AdvantEdge Headache Rack Review

Today, we're going to be taking a look at the Aries line of AdvantEdge Headache Racks, available in the chrome or black carbide powder coated aluminum. Search etrailer.com for your truck's exact fit. This is one of the best looking headache racks I've put on a truck. I really like the look. They've designed it with looks in mind, and that's a lot of times why we put these on. The headache portion of itself or that area that's going to protect the back of the truck, going to protect that back glass, this is a nice heavy duty material. You can see they've got also the octagonal cutouts here, really makes it look sharp.

The name's laser cut right in here. This is going to be a good product to have in the back of the truck. If you're loading up wood, one gets out of hand, it's going to bounce off this rather than busting through that back glass. It's also going to provide protection for like loading up four-wheelers and things like that, so you don't run them up there against the back of the truck. For your longer loads, instead of have it hanging out of the rear of the vehicle, we're actually going to be able to tuck that in at the tailgate. We can bring it up over. We'll show you that with the ladder now.

Here you see we'll be able to rest whatever length of item it is right over the top of it there and keep it from hanging out of the rear of the bed. Maybe we're hauling a trailer. It may be an enclosed trailer and we can't have anything there. That's going to help us out with that. Now, for every truck, it's going to be a little bit different height-wise, a little bit different width-wise. These are custom fit for each application.

Now, these are going to work out for your Fords anywhere from the 150 up to the 450, same with the Chevrolets, the 1500s up to the 4500s. Works out for the Ram and the Dodge Ram depending on your years there, and also for the Toyota Tundra. We've got just about full coverage of this, fits all the different models. You can see here the cutout for the third brake light. That's specific for this Ford, might look slightly different on your Chevy or on your Dodge. Now, the AdvantEdge headache rack is going to be available in the chrome, which is what they call this, more of a gray powder coat finish, and also in the black carbide finish.

It's also powder coating. That's going to help you with . more of your chrome trucks, maybe you want to go this route. If it's more of a blacked out kind of a truck, probably that carbide finish is going to match up really well. It's going to allow us to match it closely to our truck and it's really going to look nice. Now, this is full aluminum construction so we don't have to worry about any corrosion, any rusting, any deterioration like that. Also here on the top we're going to have two rows of tracks. They're going to run the full width of the headache rack. Now, with our dual-track design, this is going to allow us to attach lights and tie-down anchors, so we can see what we're doing, keep our load secure. I think the advantage of them being dual is that you could mount a light here on the front side, still have room for your anchors on the back or whatever you wanted to do. You can see the side profile it almost looks like we've got stacks added on the truck, the way it's designed. You'll definitely get a couple of second glances trying to figure that out. It's got the angular construction. This is really becoming very, very popular, and all the welds are done really nicely. At all the points, it's fully welded at each seam. As far as attaching it to the vehicle, it's a one-person job. This is light enough. You can pick it up just about with one hand. You can get it put up here in place. We just got one bolt on each side to get that secured down. To begin our installation we need to use our stake pocket clamps. We need to place them in our headache rack here. You'll see we're going to have our bolt, a lock washer, and a washer. Go through that slot, slide our bolt head in right there where we can easily get a wrench on it. Now these clamps really set this headache rack apart from a lot of them that you'll see. Most of the time we're just going to have a big rubber plug here with a washer on the bottom that as you tighten it up it expands. You can see this is going to give us metal on metal contact, and it's going to give us superior holding force. You can see as we tighten up our bolt, it's going to cause our clamp to expand, make contact with the bed of the truck, and hold it in place very, very nicely. Now, we've got this installed on the driver side here. You'll want to do the same thing on the passenger side. Now, in some applications, these are just going to be covers that you will be popping off. In other applications, you may have to actually trim around the edge, but there should be an indention there indicating where your pocket is. Now, our clamp's simply going to slide down through there. Once it's underneath it's going to expand and get a good hold. Now, we'll compress our clamps and we're going to slide these down in the stake pockets on each side. Then, we can begin to slide our rack forward positioning it exactly where we want it. I'm just going to match up the front edge of it with the front edge of the bed, and we can begin to tighten these down. Now, we can take our finish panels here for the side and the provided hardware. Need a T20 torque bit. We'll just get these threaded in here. All right. We'll go to the other side. We'll cap that off, and at that point, our headache rack's going to be ready for use. That'll do it for our look at the Aries AdvantEdge line of Headache Racks.