Pickup truck canoe rack

[beorning]

We're buying a canoe soon, and I've been thinking about how to get it home in a Toyota Tacoma with no cap. My thought is to build a rectangular frame out of two by fours that is the same height as the cab roof and then lash the frame to the cargo tie downs at the rear of the bed just in front of the tailgate.

Anyone have any better ideas or advice?

[FreightTrain]

my bud built one we used to drive us from ohio to the headwaters of the Mississippi in Mn. it was built a bit higher than the cab roof, bolted together, and the cross bars had a covering of old carpet nailed on. the cross bars had eye bolts at the four corners for the ratchet tiedowns. I dont recall how the frame was tied into the truck tho or if it even was.. must have been tho.
we used the bow and stern lines to lash the canoes down to the cross bars, then ratchet tiedowns across from left to right over the two canoes hooked into the eyebolts

when I transported our canoes to Montana for our cross country journey they were lashed to the top of a popup camper and towed behind a minivan.
when I transported it up here it was lashed to the top of my small box trailer.

there is a company that makes a rig that goes into the 2" receiver hitch and has a arm that goes up to hold the rear of a canoe level with the cab.. the front rests on a roof rack.

[Highground]

Whatever you do, don't use bungee cords or rubber straps to hold it down.
We did that one year and the front one broke. The canoe flew off and we ran over it with the travel trailer.

Thank God it was a Coleman canoe. We beat it back in shape with the side of an ax, tied it back on top, and had a good camping trip.

[vicker]

We don't use a rack. We bought four of the styrafoam pads that slip over the gunwales. I just strap it down with two staps, using the tailgate and back corner ot the cab roof as points of contact.

[mink]

freight train gave excellent advice mine is made the same way............mink

Is a Tacoma a pickup truck? If so you could buy a T rack that fits onto your universal trailer hitch. That would give you an extra 2 or 3 foot distance to carry the canoe in the back of the truck bed. Be sure and tie a red flag on the back end of the canoe so no one behind you will run into the canoe.

[beorning]

Thanks for the tips. I have a utility trailer that I think I'll use to get the boat home until I can engineer something for the truck. I'll be using the boat a lot and don't neccesarily want to have to hitch the trailer up everytime I take it anywhere.

I've seen the universal hitch rigs. I just have a ball on my bumper, though, not a regular hitch. The truck is a four cylinder and I doubt I'd want to pull more with it than the 2500lbs the bumper hitch maxes out at.

I might try cobbling together a rack from some sort of metal along the lines of what FreightTrain suggested. I want it to be easy to take out of the truck and stow when I'm not using it. I might eyeball the no rack idea. It's a little truck, though, and the boat I want is 16' long.