Land Rover Discovery 1-2 Roof Rack

One of the first mods I knew I would like to have when I bought my Disco was adding a roof rack. Actually, I bought it with a roof rack, at least, kind of….

It was light weight and light duty Aluminium roof rack which looked pretty ugly, so, I decided to build a new one on my own. It is not the first one I built, I already built roof racks for most of my Jeeps/SUVs in the past, based on that knowledge I started to plan my Disco’s one.

I knew I would like to have a 2 levels roof rack that will follow the Discovery roof lines. I knew it should be able to carry around 25 liters of water, few mattresses, tent, extra fuel and some more light equipment, I estimated that the total weight would be around 50kg.

The main material would be 20x20x1.5 mm steel profiles, that material is pretty cheap and common here and it would be strong enough for everything I would like to carry.

Dimensions:

  • Length: 180 cm
  • Width: 125 cm
  • Height: 10 cm
  • Angle between the levels: 7 degrees – I think it would be better with ~10-12 degrees.

Some Pictures:

I decided to add the steel net only on the front of the roof rack since I usually carry the mattresses, tent and water on the back side, these items I bigger and a net is not required there, that way I reduced the weight of the roof rack. Small items will be carried on the front of the roof rack.

I welded chain loops around the roof rack so it would be easier to tie and fasten everything in place.

Mounting it to the roof: I used 5/16″ bolts, 50x5mm steel legs and welded “U” shaped steel to hold the nuts. See how it looks in the pictures below:

Here you can see the final result on the Disco: