Short bed rails alternative

[jlmerie]

I have a 1978 GMC short bed truck and have always liked the look with the bed rails. I quickly discovered it was cost prohibitive to buy stock GM bed rails. I hang around a lot of junk yards and have looked at the factory roof racks on the old Jeep Grand Wagoneers. I believe they built these from about 1986-1991. So just for grins I bought a roof rack from one of the Jeeps to see what works. They are very similar to the GM hardware but a little different. I set one side on my truck to see how it looks. It is clearly a little short but could be positioned better. There was already a hole drilled in the bed rail so I just used it. I believe the vast majority of people could not see the difference from factory. The good news is that I see these fairly often at the junk yards and typically pay between $15 - $20 for a complete roof rack. I am including a couple pictures how they look on the truck and then a couple of pictures of the Jeep rail next to a factory GM rail. They are pretty close, but when you look at them side by side they are different. The pictures are not great because I did not want to get the truck outside and wash all the dust off. Hopefully you get the idea.