Malone Axis Truck Bed and Roof Load Extender with Load Roller - 2" Hitches - 375 lbs

Video Transcript for Malone Axis Truck Bed and Roof Load Extender with Load Roller Review

Hi everyone. It's Evangeline here at etrailer. And today we are looking at our Malone Axis Truck Bed and Roof Load Extender, here etrailer. So if you have a short truck bed and you need some extra space, or if you wanna carry around your extra long kayaks, your lumber or your ladders just like this is, this is a great option to have so you can maximize your space. What's special about this load extender is that this one has a load roller. So what's nice about that is if you just angle your kayak or your ladder right onto load roller, you can push it and slide it into your truck bed without having to lift it too much.

Now let's take a look at some of the features that this load extender has. So first and foremost we have it here in the horizontal position. So this is what you want it to be in. If you want to extend your truck bed like if you have a short truck bed or you really just need that extra length. This fits into 2 inch hitch receivers.

It comes with its own hitch pin and clip. Now this here is the hitch receiver mast and it goes into your hitch receiver and it is 26 1/4 inches long. From here you can see how it angles up, which is great. Especially if you worried about ground clearance because of that extra length. It also angles up at this point so that it avoids your tailgate if you have clearance in terms of your shank to your tailgate.

If you're curious about height to see if it matches up with your truck bed, when I measuring from our hitch pin hole here on our truck to the ground, it was 21 inches. And from here to the top of our load roller to the ground it is 36 inches at the lowest setting. So that will change according to how tall your truck is. I hope, that gives you a good base measurement. You can see here on the Center Mast, as well as the T-cross bar, how they have this reflector tape.

Now it's just tape so it can come off if you peel it off, just keep that in mind. It's not as sturdy as if it was plastic but still a nice little extra feature for safety. Along with the straps and ropes to secure your cargo, it also comes with hooks and extra bolts and washers as well as this waterproof safety sign. All the different accessories to keep your cargo safe and secure. This does have a weight capacity of 375 pounds but also know that some that the weight is carried by your truck bed. So just keep that in mind, as you are balancing things on your load extender. We have a ladder here on our load extender, but this also works with your canoes, your boats, your kayaks. In fact, to install this, I use the kayak and you can see in our install process how I put everything together and then roll the kayak into our truck bed. Over here, you have your side arms. Now these can be adjusted inwards and outwards according to your load on your load extender. So the minimum distance apart is 28 inches. And the furthest distance apart is right about over here which is 48 inches or 4 feet apart. As you can see, we have it here in the vertical position on our SUV. So you can see how it really extends your roof load allowing you to carry your extra long kayaks, your canoes even your long pieces of lumber, really whatever cargo you need on top of your roof rack that needs that extra support. What I like about the design in this vertical position is you can see how it curves outwards and then upwards which allows for a little extra space. Now you can't access your hatch here but if you had obstructions here in the back this gives you a little extra clearance. We have it at the lowest position and the height from the hitch pin hole to the top of the load roller is 59 inches. This is the anti-wobble accessory. The nuts and the washer that come with your kit are used to attach this. And this can go above or below your hitch receiver depending on the fit of your vehicle. Now that we've taken a look at our load extender here I did have a conversation with some of my coworkers about it, where they had some questions about how it worked and what it felt like using it. So let's go watch that right now. Coworker Alright, guys, we're going to take a look at the Malone Axis Truck Bed and Roof Load Extender with a load roller. Evangeline, if you want to kind of talk to us about the products a little bit and let us know what you think about it, and then maybe we can ask you a couple of questions. Yeah. Well, for me my favorite part about this was the load roller because what I noticed when using it was, because at first one, when I do use these things I need like an extra person to help me lift the whatever I'm lifting up and over into the truck bed, but for this one, I just like tilted it on the load ruler and push it up by myself. So, that's what I really liked about this one. And I think it's like its most special feature but yes, that's that's like my, my top thought about this. Do you have any questions about how it works or looks or feelsCoworker So I know this one's kind of a little different versus some other products we offer because of load roller. Could you talk about the load roller, you know as far as how easy it is to use, you know with sliding things across that, how well it, you know, free spins and then possibly coating how durable it would beYeah. So like for hear we are, we have some thing tightened in down on it, but I can like feel around we'll lift up this ladder so you can see how it spins. It's pretty, it's a free spinning load roller, I guess, but once you have your ladder on here, it helps secure. It has sort of a rubber texture on it, Not too spongy, more think more durable than spongy. And that really just helps it roll as you slide it along but then it's not too soft where it's just going to fall apart as you use it. It also depends on how you tighten it down on the sides which gives you the amount of like looseness or rolling-ness that it has. So it's pretty easy to use. I like the angle it's at, Cause then you can just tilt whatever you're loading at an angle and then slide it on without too much fuss. Really most of your friction will just be once it hits your truck bed and slides across your truck bed. Coworker Right. And I was thinking about the potential different uses for this product. I know kayaks, canoes would be a big one obviously ladder, longer ladder like you have. Could you see customers possibly using not necessarily plywood, but like sheet rock something along those lines. that's a little bit more flexible in the middle. Would you be able to use that with thisOh, well I guess it would depend with your. The first thing I think about with that would be between your. How far apart is it from like your tailgate and your extenders for that Just to get like a good angle for it, since it is wide it would depend on the width of whatever you're rolling onto there, cause you don't want to have too much pressure on one point, if that's what you're thinking about in case it's cause those are flexible. Coworker Right, so yeah, the sheet rock depends on the thickness of it. Obviously a thicker piece like anything else it's not going to flex as much. So I was curious if you able to use one of those because I know a lot of times you see maybe some 12 foot sheets. So I was interested if that would work, they're usually 4 foot wide, you know anywhere from 8 to 12 and sometimes longer depending on your sheet rock andyeah. To you use the load roller your max width will have to be 46 inches cause you have to have it, that's the width that these arms can go out for it to connect to. So if you have something too wide my. that's my biggest issue with it. You can't have something super wide with the load roller because then you can't even attach the load roller. It has to be within 4 feet kind of. Coworker And how well do you think the, I know that there's a couple of pre-drilled holes in the upright arms as far as an attachment point. How big are those holes I haven't seen them up closeCameraman The holes are the same size as the ones right here. Coworker Gotcha. Cameraman So, about, you know, finger-sized holesEvangeline Yeah. They also come with their own hooks. Like these trailer ones fit perfectly fine but you also have hooks that they come with. If you need to tie things down with the straps and the ropes they provide. So it's more for use with hooks and not for an actual strap to go through. Coworker Gotcha. How easy, how easy is it to adjust this product I know there's quite a bit of adjustments as far as vertical and horizontal. I mean, other than pulling the pins out is it pretty easy to move it and adjust itYeah, I think so. It was slightly heavy adjusting with the load roller attached. It was a little bit heavy just to move it up and down but it was pretty easy. Now you do have 2 holes here. You have this top one and this bottom one that is a good question because you can also choose which kind of hole you want to adjust it with and just find your best fit there. I think the pin and clip style is nice because then you're not tightening down bolts. You just push it through and clip it in place. It's just, there is a couple of them you have to adjust when it's easy in terms of actually doing it. Coworker Gotcha. And as far as this product goes, can you actually use it with a hitch reducer if you're using a bigger truck that has a larger hitch than 2 inchThat's what we have right here, we have it on this 3 inch hitch It's very relevant. So we have it with a hitch reducer sleeve So this is the Curt Hitch Reducer sleeve from a 3 inch to a 2 1/2 or 2. Now, one thing that we noticed with that was that the included hitch pin didn't fit with a larger one. So you have to use your truck's own hitch pin because the hitch pin it has only fits for 2 inch hitches. So it won't be long enough to fit around hereCoworker GotchaBut it works great with this now, I would recommend possibly using like an anti-rattle bolt if you can because the anti-wobble bracket won't fit with a larger hinge. Coworker Alright. Have you guys had a chance to ride around with it yet, with anything installed or anything being carried on thisNot yetCameraman Nope not yetCoworker GotchaWe're gonna put it on a different truck to do soCoworker I was just interested in, well I was kind of curious on how much bounce or movement, you know, the system has whenever it loaded. I'm assuming it doesn't move near as much. I know they, they tell you in the instructions that you can't use it unloadedEvangeline YeahCoworker But I'm just interested to see if there is any movement when it's loaded. It's a very good question too, also because with my experience with other hitch extenders like this is I don't think the wobbliness that comes with the pin and clip style, so that was my biggest worry. As I was securing it but really when you have all your cargo loaded in there and you have it tightened down that really kicks out the wobble, so it wasn't that bad. Coworker I definitely appreciate you guys taking the time to kind of go over this with us real quick. I know you guys are busy trying to get some content on it. If you have any questions going forward about it or need anything from me, please let me know. Alright, thank youCoworker Alright. Thank you guys. Appreciate it. What we have, here is a 3 inch hitch receiver with an adapter sleeve and this fits into your 2 inch hitch receivers. We can see here. It has 2 different holes to fit, whatever hitch you have. Slide that in there and get yourself lined up. Then you can insert your hitch pin. It does come with its own hitch pin as well as a clip. But since we have a larger receiver here we're using the hitch pin and clip that came with our receiver. If you want it in the horizontal position, this is the next bar you need to attach. So just pop that in there. And it comes with a pin and clip that you just use to secure it into place. Now that you have these pieces in place you're ready to put your T-bar on top. Now you do have different holes so that you can choose which height you want it at here for our truck. I like it at the third hole and it comes with another pin and clip to secure that. You next have the side bars. Now these can be adjusted as well, according to your load. But if you want to take advantage of the load roller that this comes in, you would attach it at the second hole. So one, two then use the pin and clip again, to secure that bar. Now do the same thing on the other side. And this is how the load extended looks like normally in the horizontal position. You can adjust your arms back and forth or up and down just to get the perfect fit for your vehicle. What makes this special is it comes with a load roller. And if you want to use it, first you need to remove one arm just so that it fits into place. Let's take this one off and push it out a little bit just so that there's space to insert our load roller. So there's a washer on each side, make sure that's in place then insert it into the hole. Once you have it in place and your pin and clips are securing in the arms on the second hole on each side, you can then attach your nuts here at the end. Now for the first one I recommend not tightening it all the way down. So you still have enough looseness there so that the roller can roll. And once that's in place you then use a second nut to really secure it. And now do the same thing on the other side. And that's how we install it in the horizontal position. Now let's test it with a kayak. What I like about the load roller is that instead of having to lift up my kayak, I just need to angle it onto the roller and then push it through so that it fits in my truck bed just like that. We have here a Ford F-450 and now this has a long truck bed. So normally our kayak would fit in the bed. But what if you have like boxes, your coolers your chairs inside your truck bed and you want to carry around your kayak. This is a great option just so that you can maximize your space. As you can see, it comes with a variety of tie down straps and ropes which will help you secure whatever cargo you're carrying. All of those come with its own straps. What I like to do is use the, etrailer straps like what we have here, mainly because it's very useful for different recreational activities. And it has a ratcheting system that's a lot easier to use. This is how we strap down our kayak. And it's really up to you depending on your truck what your truck bed looks like as well as how large or how small your kayak, your boat, your canoe or whatever it is you are carrying. Just to make sure to utilize as much of the tie down points as you can and secure your cargo. While we're here in the horizontal position, we'll take some measurements. So for length with it all the way out here. So from our hitch pin hole to the end it is 52 1/2 inches. Now this can be adjusted but with the roller here, it sits at 46 inches. Without the load roller, you can push out a little bit more. So you get 4 feet of clearance. So really anything that's wider than four feet won't work as well on this. Now this can be adjusted up and down. So you have it here at the lowest setting. Let's see how much height we can gain by bringing it to the taller setting. Each hole here, lifts it up by 1 inch. So we have it here at the tallest setting which is 7 inches of extra height. To install it in the vertical position, You need to take the center mast which was the second piece when it was a horizontal then turn it around So that fits into your hitch receiver. You can see there are 2 holes to line it up with your hitch pin hole. Get that into position and use the included hitch pin and clip to secure it. And we use this clip and insert it into the hole on your hitch pin, there you go With your center mast installed you can then insert the second bar and you can see how it angles upwards. To secure it in place you do have an included pin and clip. So just push that through to the other side and secure it and then just insert your T-cross bar here on the top. My final thoughts about this load extender is, I really liked how this load roller worked for me personally I thought it was a game changer cause then all I needed to do was tilt my kayak or my ladder on there and just slide them into my truck bed, which I really appreciate. Now it did feel kind of wobbly at first when I was installing it cause all that was holding things in place we're like the pins and clips, but once I put cargo on there and tighten things down that took out a lot of the wobble, as well as with the anti-wobble piece that goes onto the hitch. And that's just something to think about after you secure your cargo. So does it do the job well Does it extend your truck bed or your roof load and maximize your space Yes, it does. And that was a look at the Malone Axis Truck Bed and Roof Load Extender here at etrailer.com..