Before you Go: How to Make a Bed Rack Fit with a Tonneau Cover on your F150!

While a tonneau cover is almost never a bad upgrade, and are usually one of the first mods your average F150 owner adds to their truck, the latest overlanding craze has brought forth one glaring problem: fitting a bed rack system with a tonneau cover. Bed racks are a great upgrade for any truck that needs to fit a lot of gear for an overland adventure off the beaten path, but the fact that they too use bed rail space where you'd usually mount a tonneau cover poses an issue for us folks that have had a tonneau on our trucks for years. In the past, this usually meant that you'd have to sacrifice your tonneau cover for your rack, and end up with less bed security than you may want. The good news is that there are a few ways where you can have both a tonneau cover and a bed rack on your F150 so that you get both the bed security and sleek look of a tonneau cover with the expanded cargo capacity and overland gear carrying capability of a bed rack. I'm in more or less the same boat on my 2011 F150 XL, but I have a plan for getting a low-profile bed rack system to work with my TruXedo Deuce Tonneau Cover.

Using F150 Track Systems to Build a Rack Around your Tonneau Cover

One of the benefits of a tonneau cover is that it gives your truck a clean look, but a bed rack pretty much negates any hope of that, unless you put together your own removable rack system over your tonneau cover. The first building block of this concept is adding some sort of track system onto your F150's bed rails that works in conjunction with your tonneau. What I would argue is one of the best new products that has come out for the F150s over the last couple of years are the TruXedo Elevate TS Rails. The Elevate TS Rails are L-shaped rails that install between your tonneau cover's mounting rails and your F150's bed rails and feature full-length T-slots on their tops, which allows you to use any T-slot legs, crossbars, and whatever else will work with them to build your own bed rack.

I personally have a set of TruXedo Elevate TS Rails for 5.5ft Beds on the way, and I'm planning on pairing them up with a set of Rhino Rack RLT600 Legs, a pair of 71" Rhino Rack Vortex Bars, and some sort of Rhino Rack Pioneer Platform and rack accessories to fit all the gear I need. By using the RLT600 Legs, I can use their quick-detach feature to remove the entire rack system from my truck's bed when I'm not using it. This should give me a similar setup to our 2018 F150 Budget Build's bed rack setup, though without the big price impact of the Pace Edwards Jackrabbit with Explorer Rails we used on that truck.

...Speaking of price, a big issue with building a bed rack using T-slots, legs, crossbars, and a platform is a pricey prospect. Without the Pioneer Platform, we're looking at a base price of $570ish, which doesn't sound too bad, but you're only getting a set of crossbars at that point. The additional Pioneer Platforms start at $500ish retail, which means you're at a price of more extensive bed racks that come with more features. Still, having a quick release and quick attach to your bed may be worth it, especially if you don't want to have the bed rack on your truck at all times. Granted, if you're just using a few additional accessories (fishing rod holders, bike mounts, etc.), this may be the way to go. Another potential issue (though I think it's a bit overblown) is that the TS Elevate rails use clamps to install. If you're looking for something that's a bit more secure, you can check out our Yakima Bed Rack Package that requires drilling, but bolts on to your F150's bed rails for some extra security. The biggest issue with the Elevate TS rails is that won't work with all tonneau covers. Any tonneau cover that takes up the majority of your F150's bed caps is out of luck.

RCI's Bed Rack Tonneau Adapters

RCI Metalworks makes some of our favorite bed racks, and we've mounted several of their 12" Universal Bed Racks on may of our project trucks, but due to the rack's design, you're out of luck with fitting a tonneau cover. However, RCI themselves have recognized the problem and have released their own Bed Rack Tonneau Adapters. These adapters allow you to use just about any bed rail-based tonneau cover with your RCI bed rack of choice. The result is that you get one of the best and most versatile bed racks on the market while keeping your truck's tonneau cover.

There is a pretty big downside to RCI's adapters, though. Due to their C-shaped design, they raise the overall height of the bed rack by a pretty significant amount. That means your 12" bed rack is pretty close to even with your F150's cab height and an 18" bed rack bed rack is now taller than your cab. That also means that a Rooftop Tent or other cargo that may be on top of your RCI rack is now in the wind and causing drag and wind noise.

F150 Tonneau Covers with Built-In T-Slot Rails

If you know ahead of a time that you want to have both a bed rack and a tonneau cover, then your best bet may be a tonneau cover with built-in rails. Tonneaus like the Pace Edwards with Explorer Rails or Retrax XR have bed rail mounts with built-in T-slot mounts, so that like the previously-mentioned Elevate Rails, you can put together your own bed rack system over your tonneau. Granted, this method has the big downside of price, especially since both Pace Edwards and Retrax XR tonneau covers aren't exactly the most budget-friendly tonneau covers on the market.

Once I get all the components I need for putting together my truck's tonneau-compatible bed rack, we'll do a deep dive on just how it all goes together. In the mean time, what type of rack system do you prefer? Would you give up your tonneau for a more basic setup? Let us know below!

Tonneau-Compatible Bed Rack Parts:

• TruXedo Elevate TS Rails for 5.5ft Truck Beds
• TruXedo Elevate TS Rails for 6.5ft Truck Beds
• TruXedo Elevate TS Rails for 8ft Truck Beds
• TruXedo Elevate TS Rails for 5ft Truck Beds
• RCI Metal Works Adjustable Bed Rack Tonneau Cover Adapter Brackets