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A heavy duty steel roof rack is one of the most underrated accessories you can add to your 4WD. While not as exciting as a shiny pair of new spotlights, a roof rack really opens up a heap of possibilities for storing and carrying essential campsite and outdoor gear.

Let’s take a look at a few simple tricks you can use to make packing your rack easier. These will help secure your cargo which will stop you worrying about it on a long drive. When used, these tips minimise the risk of damage to your gear, and make it easier to secure some bulky or awkward items like canoes. They will also help improve packing and unpacking times so you can spend more time with your feet up before and after a drive to camp!

Choose the best rack for your needs

Take a look at the Kings roof rack range and you’ll see there are many different models, and sometimes the subtle differences are very important, depending on what you need it for. The most popular type of rack is the full length rack, because it has a steel tube raised lip or ‘cage’ that runs around its entire perimeter. This is really handy as it gives you something very secure to tie from, and also to wedge cargo against before lashing it down. For example, a heavier item like an esky or generator will store more securely when you can pin it against the steel lip of a full length rack, rather than having a flat rack without anything extra to tie down from (but flat racks have many uses which we’ll get to later).

Kings roof racks fit many utes and 4WDs. Apart from the universal gutter mount racks and model specific racks we feature, any of the range can be fitted to a ute or 4×4 by fastening it to roof rails or crossbars using u-bolts. That means you don’t need to pay hundreds elsewhere if we don’t make a rack to suit your specific vehicle – a couple of low cost u-bolts will sort you out in no time.

Okay, so full length racks clearly have an advantage when storing lots of smaller items thanks to their extra lip acting like a fence. The other models are all very handy too. Roof top tent racks, apart from being the obvious choice if you want to fit a Kings Tourer or Weekender roof top tent, are also very versatile because they have a raised lip at the front and a flat section at the back. You can put heavier items on the front but aren’t restricted by the lip at the back if you need to throw some oversized or awkward gear on the back from time to time.

tradies racks have rails running north to south along the rack (if you imagine your headlights facing north) and flat racks have no extra rails on top of the heavy duty mesh on the rack. These are especially handy for long items, or for 4x4s or utes that need to access low-ceiling carparks or garages.

Tips to secure your load

While a few lengths of quality rope and the ability to tie a truckie’s hitch are always handy, most people secure their cargo using a quality set of ratchet straps like the Hercules straps from 4WD Supacentre. We recommend using between two or four straps (so one or two pairs) to secure your gear. A good tip is to secure the heaviest item first and make sure it’s grounded firmly on the rack (and not half sitting on a bit of mesh floor or sleeping bag). A firm grounding is important so when you lash down tight, the rack grips hard on the heavy duty steel of the rack and won’t move. Sometimes when people try to secure a heavy item on top of a flat but soft item underneath, it appears tight until you travel a few kilometres and the bumps in the road force it to shift a few centimetres. That’s all it takes to loosen a load and cause problems.

Use light and bulky items to pack down

Once you’ve secured any heavy items with their own straps, you can throw lighter things like swags over the top and strap them down. Softer, flexible cargo like this works like a heavy duty tarp – it compresses around your gear and really helps to lock it in. Plus, items like Kings swags which all come with a carry bag are nice and smooth surfaces for ratchet straps or rope to bite on to. They’ll keep them in much better condition compared to items with sharp edges like shovels.

Old towels are your friend

If you don’t have old rags, grab a metre of marine carpet from a hardware store and cut it into a few lengths. The aim here is to have half a dozen bits of thick, tough fabric handy (keep them wherever you keep your ratchet straps) to help protect your gear or the ratchet straps. Any time you have an item you don’t want scuffed from being pinned against the steel lip of a rack, slide a piece of marine carpet or a rolled up towel between the two. You can also use this trick to protect your straps from sharp edges, and the place under the ratchet mechanism of the strap that sometimes rests against the cargo once pulled tight. This stops the metal on the ratchet rubbing against something soft like a swag for hundreds of kilometres on a trip.

Get some heavy duty rubber tube

A final trick and one that’s really handy when carrying large items like canoes and kayaks is to get a couple of lengths of heavy duty rubber pipe or tube. Cut the flexible but tough tube into lengths of about 30cm, and then but a cut down the pipe, so you can force the tube over the steel bar or end of a Kings roof rack. This trick is a beauty when you’ve got a heavy item like a canoe that you need to carry. If using a full length rack for example, a 50kg, 4 metre canoe will only have two touch points on the rack – right at each end. If there’s a bend on contour in the canoe’s gunnel or hull, there might only be a tiny amount of surface area in contact between the rack and the canoe. By buffering them with some really heavy duty rubber pipe and lashing them down hard, you can increase the effective surface area by 4-5 times, which makes all the difference when travelling down a bumpy corrugated dirt road to a secret fishing spot. Don’t forget to use a spare piece of carpet to protect your strap from the keel of a canoe or kayak which is rarely smooth after being dragged over rocks.