<VV> Raising mechanism a tonneau cover

Thesuperscribe at cs.com Thesuperscribe at cs.com
Thu Jul 3 13:31:59 EDT 2008


Folks,

My very limited experience with solid tonneau covers caused me to reject 
them. I bought a used Dakota PU with an A.R.E. color-matched cover that and yes, 
it kept the inside of the bed like new and protected anything inside very well, 
both from weather damage and theft. But I found it vertically limited what I 
could carry in the bed, so I sold it on eBay. It probably cost the original 
owner $800 or more. Know what I was able to get for it? $66!

When I had a Rampside somebody gave me a custom-made steel cover which I 
hauled home and almost immediately removed because it was awfully heavy and, as 
with the later cover on the Dakota, limited the truck's vertical load-carrying 
ability. I tended to want to climb and walk into the bed, and the cover was 
always in the way and almost impossible to raise.

I've also had very limited experience with "gas cylinders" which help raise 
hatches on hatch-back cars. I tried replacing a pair of worn-out cylinders with 
items from an auto parts store, but they weren't strong enough. I bought a 
couple at a Chevy dealer (the car was a Citation -- yes, one of those awful X 
cars) and they worked properly. 

The lesson was that cylinders have weight capacities and if you're gonna put 
them under a fiberglass cover on your Rampside, you'll have to do a lot of 
trial-and-error to find ones that work. Or you can try to compute the weight 
involved for each one (or each pair) and try to find appropriate units. 

I believe a roll-up soft top is the best way to go for a tonneau cover, as 
you can easily roll it out of the way to haul tall things and roll it back in 
place when you're done. The type that use Velcro along the rails is much easier 
to secure than the ones with snaps. 

Yeah, the soft style can be cut into by a thief. And more importantly, none 
is available for a Rampside. I wonder if the companies that make them could be 
persuaded to custom-craft a model for Rampsides.

--Tom in Ohio

*** 
In a message dated 7/3/2008 12:00:53 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
virtualvairs-request at corvair.org writes: 
> 
> I like the versatility of the last 4 way one.. Pretty neat and simple.
> 
> Chuck S
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Western Canada CORSA" <westerncanadacorsa at shaw.ca>
> 
> >Bill,
> >
> >There is nothing like drive home of 1300+miles after the convention to let
> >ones mind begin prioritizing all the things you're going to do to your 
> >'vair
> >once you're there.
> >
> >Beginning with.... a way of lifting the Yuma Rampside's new fiberglass
> >tonneau straight up to get access to the bed area.  So far I've come up 
> >with
> >three possibilities....
> >
> >Four of these in the stake holes: http://www.ahpower.com/ahsite/234.html
> >
> >Or possibly something from this company: 
> >http://www.4are.com/product/topup/
> >
> >Or maybe this: http://www.4waytonneaucover.com/features
> >
> >This is going to be fun....
> >
> >Regards,
> >Joel
   


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