EL200 Ladder Rack for Pace Edwards UltraGroove Tonneau Covers - Dodge

Video Transcript for Pace Edwards UltraGroove Tonneau Cover EL200 Ladder Rack Review

Hi everyone. Aiden here with etrailer.com. Today we're taking a look at the Pace Edwards Ladder Rack System designed to be used with their Pace Edwards Ultra Groove Tonneau Covers and this is going to be a ladder rack great for carrying lumber, ladders, maybe some other recreational accessories like a kayak, a tent, maybe a bike rack. There's a lot of things you can do with this and it's all designed to do in tandem with having a tonneau cover so our bed can be covered up, we get that added fuel economy and security with all of our gear locked up inside and some of the oversized items like a kayak or a bike that might not fit well in here with the cover on top, so we can still carry it all and do it with ease as well. So right off the bat, up top you can see we're utilizing the tie down points on our end caps here. These are gonna give us points to hook a strap into like an S hook so we can get all of our gear secured.

You can see everything on here is very solid, nothing's moving around, so we've got a good strong hold on all of this while not taking up that room inside the bed. One thing I will say is that you are a little bit limited by the weight capacity here. It does have a 200 pound weight capacity which for someone working on a job site where you are gonna be carrying more lumber, more ladders, more gear, and you need that higher capacity, I'll maybe you look into just a traditional ladder rack that isn't designed to work with a tonneau cover because you aren't gonna be as limited with your weight there. That is a trade off you have to make. But if you're doing this for maybe some small projects around the house and just recreational use like kayaks, rooftop tents and bikes, then that 200 pound limit probably isn't as much of a concern for you and this system would work great.

One other limiting factor is the fact that this is fixed. There's no adjusting it up and down. So while we do have clearance over the cab, that's great for longer loads like our lumber, longer ladders, kayaks anything like that that might run into the cab if we have it over the bed here, it is gonna be a little bit of a hassle for other things. Maybe if we have a bike rack up there we don't need it to extend over the cab and it'd be nicer to have that rack lower down where it's easier to reach. Same thing with a tent when we're loading it up it's easier to have that rack lower down and we don't always need that extreme height.

So you are stuck with that 24 and a half inch height on this rack compared to something else like the Yakima Overhaul that's an adjustable ladder rack system that still does work with your tonneau covers here as long as they've got that rail system so you get more adjustment there. You can change that height depending on what you're carrying unlike this where you're kind of stuck with that height you have here. Overall construction's gonna be a black powder-coated steel upright and the crossbars are aluminum so we don't have to worry about any rust and corrosion up here and even the uprights will have some weather resistance to them. And overall, even though the system lacks adjustability it does make up for that in a relatively simple install process, so let's go through that process now. The first thing we wanna do is install the uprights onto the rails of our tonneau cover.

We wanna make sure that these are in the correct orientation too so you'll see that they slant inward, that's gonna face in towards the middle of the bed, and then on this side we have a more vertical section and a more slanted section. The slants we want facing in towards each other, so this rear crossbar is gonna face towards the cab. That front crossbar we have installed that's gonna face towards the tailgate. And then, once we've got the correct orientation we can take two of our carriage bolts, slide them into the rails right here and then I'm just gonna get these loosely set in place for right now. Exact spacing, we'll figure out in a second. We'll set the upright down on top of those exposed threads and then on the inside, secure it with a flat washer and a lock nut. Before we get all of it fully attached you probably wanna go ahead and attach this pad to the underside of the upright. We're not leaving this in place so I'm not gonna install it today but that'll just stick in there and give a little bit of protection so it's not metal on metal contact when you have this installed on your tonneau cover. So for right now, I'm just gonna mostly tighten it down. I wanna leave it loose enough that I can still move it back and forth and figure out what crossbar spread I want. Once I've got it kind of identified where I want it to be permanently, I can get it fully tightened down. Your crossbar spread's really gonna just depend on what kind of accessories you wanna put up here or how you're gonna use the ladder rack. For us today, we're mainly wanting to put a tent up here so I'm gonna kind of measure it out based on that. I'll move this in a little bit and right about there for our application is looking good so we can move to the bottom, tighten that down and repeat that whole process on the other side to get a nice even spread on either end. Then once everything's secure, we can take our crossbar and actually feed it through the uprights. I found that it's a little bit easier to actually do this from inside the bed so we can just kind of feed it from the inside on that one, tilt it up and bring it over to the other side and feed it through that hole. Then you can get it roughly even on either side. You can always measure it out if you want a more exact measurement and then we can grab our hardware. To start off the hardware, we're gonna have four of these longer screws with the Allen key head right there. We'll just drop those through the top of the ladder rack in all four slots. You'll see 'em poked down underneath and then we have this plate that'll match up with all four of those screws. I'll hold that in place and secure it with a flat washer and another one of those lock nuts that we used earlier. Get it kind of loosely started by hand on all four and we'll come back and tighten them down. So we'll take our socket underneath and our Allen key up top and just tighten all those down. It is important to note that your kit does not come with the tools, so you will need to provide them yourself, including the Allen key, and we'll just go through and do this for all eight for here, for over there and try to tighten them relatively evenly kind of going in a star shape pattern to ensure everything's even. Last is the end caps. Those will just go onto the crossbars here and you can install it upright like this to utilize the tie down point or flip it upside down if you need the clearance for something like a tent that's gonna actually fold over and kind of sit over the edge of the crossbars there. I'm gonna install mine just upright today with the included screws, two on each side and just start them off by hand here if I can get that to thread. Once they're started by hand, you can just secure it the rest of the way with your Allen key. Again, this is not provided so you will need to get your own. And once you're done with those end caps your installation is done. I do like the simplicity of the whole installation. There's not a lot of moving parts. Everything is pretty solid and the finished result I think is more than sturdy enough. That weight capacity isn't great, but if you're just using it for something like light house projects or maybe a tent or kayak, other accessories that you don't wanna put on the roof or you don't wanna put in the bed, this is a good option. Again, it doesn't have as many options as something like the Yakima system might but if you're just looking for simplicity, this'll get the job done and still work with your tonneau cover. Thanks for watching..