What's the best & cheapest place for a soft tonneau cover. 8ft bed..would like clamp on style....man these are expensive. But just think of the mpg increase......yeah right.

 

I've thought about making a hard cover out of a couple pieces of thin plywood and a couple pieces of angle for support.

 

Seriously???

 

I really like these but maybe a camper shell if ya can't afford one of these.


Orich

 

Painted and trimmed to look nice of course. It would be cheap but it would take away from function.

 

It's very doable.. think of it as building an airplane wing with spars and a lightweight skin like aluminum, luan with a fiberglass reinforcement, or a fiberglass-hardened sheet of polyester fleece (like custom molded speaker enclosures).

 

Don't you watch Mythbusters?

Tailgate down = worst gas mileage
No tailgate with pro net type thing = next worst
Tailgate Up only or with a cover were pretty equal and better than tailgate down and pro net type thingy.

I like the Truxedo clamp on, fold up type. But they are pricey.

 

I put a Berlin tarp on my last '67 longbed. Went to local cap stop and they measured the bed and looked at the chart to find the closest fit. Don't recall what model it was?

Ya, $199 if I recall?? Not cheap, but made local to me.

Have one on my '89 F150. It lasted 5 yrs before getting really dry and hard to fold up(outside 24/7). I drove down to Berlin(about an hour) and they replaced just the tarp for $90.

 

I got one on Ebay for $230. A roll up with 4 cross bars. I had to modify it a bit to make it fit but it works pretty good. The only one that I could find that was a perfect fit was $1200, so I am pretty happy with this one.

 

I made one for my truck. I built the frame out of wood, and used the gas shocks and brackets from one of those fiberglass covers to lift it. I wrapped the wooden frame in tonneau cover material that I was able to buy locally.

 

Great job. I am planning on doing something like that in the future, I needed something to cover the top immediately so I bought the one I did. And I don't mean to ruffle any feathers, but I get better MPG with the cover on. Without it I was getting 10 to 10 1/2 and with it, 11 1/2 to 12 1/2 depending on how I drive.

 

Found this place in SoCal
Specialize in vintage truck solid tonneau caps.
******** Truck Lids | Truck Bed Lids for Classics, Rancheros, El Caminos and current models.
IIRC it was about $1600 to get one shipped (unpainted) to Oregon.
I got a canopy instead.