Aries AdvantEdge Headache Rack - Carbide Black Powder Coated Aluminum

Video Transcript for Aries AdvantEdge Headache Rack Installation - 2008 Ford F-350

Today on our 2008 Ford F350 we're going to be installing the Aries Advantedge Headache Rack in the powdered coat chrome. Part number is AA1110203. It's also available in a carbide black powdered coat finish, part number AA1110103. Now here's what our headache rack's going to look like installed on the truck, the headache portion of itself or that area that's going to protect the back of the truck, going to protect that back glass. This is a nice, heavy-duty material. You can see they've got also the octagonal cut outs here.

Really makes it look sharp. The name's laser cut right in here. This is going to be a good product to have in the back of the truck. If you're loading up wood and one gets out of hand it's going to bounce off this rather than busting through that back glass. It's also going to provide protection like loading up 4-wheelers and things like that, so you don't run them up there against the back of the truck, and for your longer loads, instead of having it hanging out of the rear of the vehicle, we're actually going to be able to tuck that in at the tailgate.

We can bring it up over. We'll show you that with a ladder now. Here you see we'll be able to rest whatever length of item it is, right over the top of it there and keep it from hanging out of the rear of the bed, maybe we're hauling a trailer and maybe even a closed trailer and we can't have anything there. That's going to help us out with that. Now this is full aluminum construction, so we don't have to worry about any corrosion, any rusting, any deterioration like that. Also here on the top, we're going to have 2 rows of tracks. They're going to run the full width of the headache rack, and with our dual track design, this is going to allow us to attach lights and tie down anchors so we can see what we're doing, keep our load secure.

I think the advantage of them being dual is that you can mount a light here on the front side, still have room for your anchors on the back, or whatever you wanted to do. You can see the side profile, it almost looks like we've got stacks added on the truck, kind of the way it's designed. You'll definitely get a couple of second glances trying to figure that out, and it's got the angular construction. This is really becoming very, very popular, and all the welds are done really nicely. At all the points it's fully welded in each seam. As far as attaching it to the vehicle, it's a one person job.

This is light enough you can pick it up just about with one hand. You can get it put up here in place. We've just got one bolt on each side to get that secured down. Now to begin our installation, we need to use our stake pocket clamps. We need to place them in our headache rack here. You'll see we're going to have our bolt and lock washer, and a washer. Go right through that slot, slide our bolt head in right there where we can easily get a wrench on it. Now these clamps really set this headache rack apart from a lot of them that you'll see. Most of the time, we're just going to have a big rubber plug here with a washer on the bottom that, as you tighten it up, it expands. You can see this is going to give us metal on metal contact and is going to give us superior holding force. You can see as we tighten up our bolt, it's going to cause our clamp to expand, make contact with the bed of the truck, and hold it in place very, very nicely. We've got this installed on the driver's side here. You'll want to do the same thing on the passenger side. Now in some applications, these are just going to be covers that you will be popping off. In other applications you may actually have to trim around the edge but there should be an indention there indicating where your pocket is. Now our clamp's simply going to slide down through there. Once it's underneath, it's going to expand and get a good hold. Now we'll compress our clamps and we're going to slide these down in the stake pockets on each side. Then, we can begin to slide our rack forward, positioning it exactly where we want it. I'm just going to match up the front edge of it with the front edge of the bed and we can begin to tighten these down. Now we can take our finished panels here for the side and the provided hardware. You need a T-20 torque bit, we'll just get these threaded in here. All right. Go to the other side. We'll cap that off and at that point, our headache rack's going to be ready for use. That's going to complete our installation of the Advantedge Headache Rack, part number AA1110203, on our 2008 Ford F350.