Build Showcase: Justin B McBride's Bronco Build Featuring TrailRax Parts

As many of you may know, Justin B McBride is a youtuber in the Overland and camping world. He is a local to the Utah area near our HQ. When he got word that he was a Ford Bronco Ambassador, we were excited to work with him on his build. Not too long into his possession of the Bronco, we quickly noticed the OEM roof rack was not going to be capable of what both our team and Justin wanted for functionality and use offroad. Of course our original plan was just to make our signature Pak Rax for the Bronco and we tried to mount it off the OEM rack. We ran into a few issues at the time with this rack; 1. The Rack was not as capable as we would have liked, it did not take on the weight load we wanted and it had a lot of issues with the Pak Rax (mounting it to the plastic was not the greatest idea). 2. production and sourcing a roof rack for either 2 door or 4 door was impossible to get and we did not want to limit our pak rax to just customers who somehow could get the roof rack in their hands. This is where we scrapped the idea and started fresh. The Bronco Market needed something better and more usable which is where we asked our potential customers and audience a series of questions that ultimately lead to the design of our Bronco TrailRax Modular Roof Rack.



Once our Rack was born, Justin B McBride was one of the first to get the production models. One of the first things we put on the rack was the Go Fast Camper's Superlite V1. This Tent was a great size for the 2 door plus it was super light weight for those concerned about overloading the roof or the roof rack. He also added rotopax and waterport containers to the pak rax and would switch it up based on the adventure he was planning. He even used our Shovel and Axe mount when he was not in need of extra fluids. Justin uses our pak rax exactly how they were designed by switching them up based on what his adventure was about.



We also worked closely with Heretic Studios as they are a local lighting brand to us as well as all machined and assembled in house with a high priority on customer service. All of the attributes about their brand make it easy for us to always choose them for our lighting needs. We worked with them on mounting the light and making it the best fit possible. On the TRMR Rack, you will notice a Heretic Light bar fits perfect in the cut out and also sits below the cross members in the rack, this allows the user to load stuff on the roof without coming into contact with the light bar.



Justin had also later added the yakima awning to the rack. With the width of the tent, we had to off-set the tent to one side and mount the awning to the 90 degree bend we have incorporated into our rack.




Justin also runs our Trail Sight Accessory Mount (TSAM for short) for his antenna which is a great placement to keep an eye on your antenna which is great when off-roading in tons of brush.

If you have any questions about this build, be sure to let us know! If you would like to see more build showcases, be sure to let us know!

Great to see some robust work on a 2-door!

Love the trail sight antenna mounts from yall. Let me know when you come up with a 4dr soft top rack system.

mootruck98 said:

Love the trail sight antenna mounts from yall. Let me know when you come up with a 4dr soft top rack system.

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Working on it. It is tough to work with all the different types of soft tops and limited mounting area.

Mr. Rax, Is it possible to install the Pak Rax without the TrailRax Modular roof rack or on the OEM Ford Rack for a four-door? Your website says "Stand-alone Pak Rax will not work on 2 doors". So how does it work on a four-door stand-alone?

Are we able to remove the front and middle roof panels with the rack on?

Jonny way said:

Mr. Rax, Is it possible to install the Pak Rax without the TrailRax Modular roof rack or on the OEM Ford Rack for a four-door? Your website says "Stand-alone Pak Rax will not work on 2 doors". So how does it work on a four-door stand-alone?

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This is the standalone version. no roof rack but does have two crossbars that help with the pull weight and keeping both pak rax up right. Because the 2 door has ONLY 1 clamp location per side, it is not possible for stand alone pak rax as of now until we find the solution. Pak Rax does not work with the OEM rack is it was proven not to be strong enough to hold the pak rax.

desibull said:

Are we able to remove the front and middle roof panels with the rack on?

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Absolutely. The front panels have more clearance than the OEM rack so it is actually going to be easier, the rear can come off and you would just unlatch and move it forward and pull it out. It is easy!

thank you...Does it fit with the Ford OEM rack in place?
So I would need to order the Pax Rax Kit and two Modular Roof Rack Add'l Crossmembers?

Jonny way said:

thank you...Does it fit with the Ford OEM rack in place?
So I would need to order the Pax Rax Kit and two Modular Roof Rack Add'l Crossmembers?

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No you will want to purchase the stand alone Pak Rax kit if that is what you are looking for. Also no it will not fit with the OEM rack in place, they are conflicting mounting areas.

If You were to mount the low profile awning brackets on, how much higher would that stand above the roof?

Blucifer said:

If You were to mount the low profile awning brackets on, how much higher would that stand above the roof?

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It will add just under 4" from the top of the cross bar.

The day Justin stopped getting paid by Ford as a Bronco ambassador, he turned in the Bronco and bought a Jeep. In the months prior, he stripped every accessory off this build and sold them. It WAS a very cool Bronco, but unfortunately doesn’t exist any longer. Personally, and in hindsight, I was sad to see the build was only motivated by ford sponsorship.

I have TRMR and the Pax Rax on my 2-door, and it replaced the OEM rack after just a month as was mentioned it didn't meet my needs of adding an awning, roof top tent and maxtrax as well as rotopax. The one thing I dislike about the Pax Rax is the inner (closest to the doors) bar that comes done is much closer to the window to the rear bar. I had to chop off the maxtrax pins so they didn't hit the window, but it just feels things are to close on those sides. Time will tell if it results in a problem.

I have the same RTT on mine, but went with RoofNest Litewing awning as it was the lightest that I could find. I used the TrailRax 90 degree Low Profile bracket. As you can see, it sits much lower than the tent, mind you I am using GFC's quick mount brackets, which raises the tent a little over an inch.



The tent is offset as you can see, and this picture shows how much closer the inner bar of the Pax Rax is to the outer bar:









A couple issues with the GFC Superlite being offset, one the tent has no way to mount a ladder to it, they did have some thing that attached to the under rails and used straps, but that just seems to complicated to me. I purchased GFC's Mantis Claw for ladders, which was mountable directly to the TraxRax side rail, however since I have my Maxtrax mounted to that side, it wasn't far enough out to attach the ladder. I looked around to see what I could use or if I needed to get something fabricated. I ended up use Alu-cab's Load bar risers (4 of the low ones, have the high ones on order) and that brings just enough to use and attach the ladder with leaving the Maxtraxs installed on the PaxRax.



I wish Justin would of done more talking about install and use of this rack especially mounting is Maxtrax and then removing them for the WaterPort and how he get's into his tent.

I also think it would nice if TrailRax actually had pictures of the accessories mounted to the rack and describe where and how they can be mounted and used.

Don't get my wrong, I love the rack and IMO it's the best one out there for the 2-door. I didn't go with the Heretic light bar, because they don't offer clear covers for protection or amber covers if you need to change the color based on the weather and their black fabric cover, some states require them to be covered would not last in the Texas sun.

brentutk said:

The day Justin stopped getting paid by Ford as a Bronco ambassador, he turned in the Bronco and bought a Jeep. In the months prior, he stripped every accessory off this build and sold them. It WAS a very cool Bronco, but unfortunately doesn’t exist any longer. Personally, and in hindsight, I was sad to see the build was only motivated by ford sponsorship.

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really??? I didn't realize that .. I thought he sold his jeep in favor of the Bronco.

@Ford really screwed the ambassador program by going with these influencers who were only doing it for the money.