Rapid Switch Systems Pro HD Truck Bed Ladder Rack for Full-Size Short Bed Trucks - 800 lbs

Video Transcript for Rapid Switch Systems Pro HD Truck Bed Ladder Rack Installation - 2017 Chevrolet Silverado 2500

What's up everybody it's AJ with etrailer.com, today we're gonna be checking out the rapid switch pro HD ladder rack on this 2017, Chevrolet Silverado 2500. It's gonna be a great way to haul your ladder and your kayak up and out of the bed of your truck, that way you leave that space open for whatever else you wanna bring. Let's check it out. Now, there's a bunch of different size ladder racks for a bunch of different trucks. So you can have a full sized truck with a long bed or short bed, compact truck, or even a mid-sized truck, they all have different versions of the ladder rack to put on there. So, just use our website to make sure you get the right one.

I mentioned how one of the features of the rack was that you could take it off easily from your truck bed. Now the HD version is a little bit different than the standard one. It's got this crossbar on here, so we're gonna have to remove that first before we can remove the side roof, which still you do need a tool for this now, but it's not that big a deal, it's easy to take off still. So, let's get right to it. I'm gonna come here where the attach is and you see the bolt through this end.

There's a small square nut on this end of it we slid in the track. So I'm just gonna use this ratchet and loosen this up. I'm not gonna fully remove the bolt, just gonna make sure it's loose so that I can slide this bar off after that. Now the bar's removed, I can set it aside. From here on out, it's gonna be tool-free.

What we're gonna do is come both sides here, take out the clip and the pen and both of these. That'd be this one and our other post over here. Now we can lift the bar off, it should just slide off these posts. Now, if it does get stuck, you can loosen these bolts down here. That means maybe these arms are kinda sideways or pulled in a little bit, it might not pull off as easily.

But if they're upright and lined up correctly, it should be able to just pull up on it on both sides and just lift it off, just like that. Now, all you gotta do just twist the post and remove it like that. Now what we have is the base rails that just rest on the truck bed rails here. They don't add a whole lot through there, so I don't think they're gonna be in the way for you and you have full bed access for whatever you need. You can also use the holes as mounting points for accessories. So you have this tie down here, just go turn it into place and it's locked in there. And now you have a tie down point wherever you need it, so you can put it up here, you put one on the one back there, it's also moves wherever you want. So then, when you're ready to use your ladder rack again, just do it in reverse. Make sure you line up the grooves there at the bottom, put it in place and just turn it and see it's not going anywhere once it turned in there. And that's good to have that option, maybe you don't want the ladder rack on your truck all the time. Sometimes you're not gonna need it, if you're not using it, you might as well take it off. And it's this easy to do. This ladder rack system gives you plenty of options too. So maybe you don't want this much of a crossbar spread, you wanna bring it in a little bit, you can use the holes down here on the base and move the post over here and the same thing on the one on the backside, move them in and we'll be close together and can fit that bike rack that wouldn't be able to fit when it's this far apart. It's just nice to have those options. You don't have to put it in a set place and keep it there. There's other things like you can have the bars facing inward or facing outward. It doesn't matter, but it's up to you. You can make it work any way you need to. Another great option this ladder rack has, is that you can adjust the height. So that's cool that you can pop this pin and clip out and use any one of these holes on the side. There's four of them and they're 5 3/4 inches apart, but you can adjust that up or down to wherever you want the bar to be. Now you will have to remove the sidebar if you wanna go past it or use that hole. But that is also an option you have too. The ladder rack system is made out of an anodized aluminum. So you know it's gonna hold up so those elements, 'cause you're probably going to leave it on your truck most of the time when you're using it. And so you don't wanna have to worry about the rain rusting it up or damaging it. It's not gonna be an issue. It also has a weight capacity of 800 pounds because of the sidebar installed. And it really does take a lot of the shake and play out. Without this, it does shake a little bit, but you can see I'm shaking the whole truck back and forth, and this isn't rattling or moving at all. Now without the sidebar, the weight capacity does drop to 500. So just keep that in mind, whether you're using it or not, that it will change the weight capacity. Taking a look at the top crossbar, you can see how it's got an aerodynamic design. That means the air can travel over and under very easily. It's not just a square block that the wind's gonna just smack into and not go anywhere. Another thing is, it's got a slot here at the top and the bottom, but it may look like you can put accessories in there, but is a little bit smaller than other ones so your T-Track accessories aren't gonna work, we've tried a couple of them that we have down here, they just didn't slide in there. But you mainly use it just to run this bolt and that square nut in there to attach the crossbars. So it does work doing that and it's nice and tight on there. Now let's get some quick measurements. We're gonna go from the top of the truck bed rail to the top of the bar here. I'm gonna drop this down. Make sure it's even, and it's about 26 3/4 inches. Now that is at its highest point. So if you wanna know the other ones, just subtract it by 5 3/4 for each section to get that measurement. Now let's go down here to the base rails and see how much they stick up on your bed. Go from the bottom to the top of it. And it looks like its an inch and a quarter. So it takes up just a little bit. I know I said earlier, but I don't think it makes that much different. It doesn't stick out on your truck bed, so even if you do go use the, remove these posts, the rails still be there. I think they'll mostly be out of your way. Let's check out how long the base rail is. Gonna start front, keep my tape mark there, come back. It's going to be 57 and half inches long. And then, the mounting holes here, these are gonna be the outmost holes. So from here to here, that's gonna be 50 inches. The closer measurement is gonna be 10. And then from the inner most ones, it's gonna be 30. The crossbar is gonna measure out to 72 inches long, and then the side rails, these are gonna measure 66 inches long from end to end. All that's great. I like all the features, but how hard is it to install I've done in quite a few different ladder racks and this one's not that bad. There's gonna be a couple extra steps just because it's the first setup that you'll have to go through, but overall it's pretty easy, follow along and see how we did it. Went ahead and installed the passenger side first. You're gonna see what the end result is gonna be. It wasn't that bad to install, there's three clamps, and what we did was we measured out from these stake pockets, three and half inches of space on both sides of the front and back, and make sure this was in the center or the center most place. And that way we can do that on this side too. So I'm gonna set this bar up in place, on our bed rails. Okay, I get it where I think it's gonna be, and then let's measure it out to make sure it's exact 'cause we want both rails on each side to match up. So I'm a little off on this one. Three and half right there. We'll double check the front too, three and a half is right there. So now, we can start adding our clamps in. What was nice about this one is one, our truck is nice and flat. The rails here are flat, so it sits up there pretty well, I don't have to hold it. You see I have a habit after doing a lot of these ladder racks, I'm always keeping my hand on here, 'cause I'm afraid it's going to fall off, but it's not, it's gonna sit right there. So that kind of makes it nice that I can use both hands on these clamps. So kind of matching what I did on that side. And your vehicle may be different, so if you have anything that's in the way here, you might not be able to use this one. So you can use this slot and it gives you more options here if there's less stuff in the way there. So you're gonna put the clamp in and you can see it's got two stops. So kinda get it in like that. I got that second one in there and you can see how it falls down on this groove here. So that sits in there and keeps it from falling right back out. So you see, I can pull on that clamp, it's not moving, that also helps me get this installed. So then I'll just come back here at the bottom of the clamp, twist this by hand to get it started and then come back with a ratchet and tighten it down. But I'm not gonna tighten it down until I get all of them installed. Two things to point out real quick. This is a better example of what I was talking about, I can't exactly fit the clamp right in here 'cause this doesn't go up. So this part of the bed sticks out. So I can just go here on the side instead and you see it slides right in there. So that's probably the better example of the slot giving you more space to work with a bunch of different trucks. Along with that though is the measurements I gave you, the three and a half inches might not be the same for your truck. We're just giving you an example of like, you know set it in place, measure on both sides whatever that measurement is, make sure to do on the other side, that way they line up and you don't have to undo everything and move it around. I'm gonna come back with my ratchet and tighten all these down. We're gonna start back here and I don't think I'm gonna go all the way. I'm just gonna slowly jump back and forth as I tighten up. Now we're ready to put our post in, it's really easy. You can see there's grooves here at the bottom, that's what you're gonna line up with, with these two portions here that stick out, they're gonna slide along those grooves and you can see you can twist it and that's what locks it into place. So let me show you what I'm talking about. Put that lined up, falls right into place like that. And then you just turn it to the side and it's in place. I'm gonna repeat that on the remaining three. We're gonna use the furthest hole towards the front and the furthest hole towards the back for all of our posts. Now we're ready to add our crossbar mounts. So you just kind of line it up here. And it should slide down on there, now it might take just a couple of hits with your hand to get it down and going, just be careful. It should slide easier once it get here and then line up the hole right there. Let me see, yeah, this one's a little loose, which is good. It just makes it easier to slide up and down. One of ours was a little stiff. So you just kinda, I'm just kinda hit with my hand to get it go down, but nothing bad. So we're gonna put our pin through there at our clip, that way the pin stays in. Gonna repeat that process in the next three. So now, before we set our rails in place, we're gonna go ahead and slide in the square nut, goes right in the groove here and slides along that channel. And what we're gonna do is I'm gonna set this up in place, flip around, match this up with the holes in the arms and then screw this in. So this is what you'll be attaching and tightening down. Now, of course, it's gonna be up there like this. So I just want to kind of give you a better view of what it's gonna look like here. Now we just set the cross rail in place, just like that. I'm gonna go underneath here and try and get this started. Just like I told you before, I'm gonna line up that square nut with the hole in the arm. Can I get it started there Come back to my ratchet. Just give it one turn. You don't wanna go too tight yet 'cause you wanna get the other side and be able to slide it back and forth. And now I know it's in there, I can still slide it ahead of the other side. Now I see it's even, let's go ahead and come back further tighten it down. To install our HD bars, I'm gonna run the bolt through on this side and then we're gonna put our spacer here make sure it's facing this way. So this part goes in the groove, just like that and sits there. I'm gonna do the same thing on our other posts over there, and then we're gonna set the rail. Little tip to make this part easier, is just take the square nut and screw it on this bolt ahead of time. Just a little bit and make sure it's even and then we'll take the bar and slide along here and get it installed that way. It's much easier than putting the square nut in the bar and try and getting that to fit right. So this way we should be able just to start here at the end and slide it on through. Just put one finger on the square nut, so it doesn't rotate on you. Repeat the same thing up here, there you go. Now once I've made sure that it's even on both sides, just go ahead and tighten it down. I don't do it too much. About there's good. Overall, I think it was pretty easy to get it installed. There was just a couple of brackets to install, the base to the rails of the truck and then from then, it was really easy. So next time when you go to break it down, it will come off just as easy and you don't have to take the full thing off. You won't have to take the rails off, the base rail, unless you want to, but those can stay on there. Next time, all you have to do to take it all off, is just remove the HD bars and the top and then just twist and remove the posts. It's that easy. Then it's out of the way and you can use your truck for whatever you want it to. I think that about does it. Thanks for hanging out and I hope this helped..