has anyone built their own tonneau?

i want one so i can lock stuff in the bed, but without having my shell on. also i cant seem to being myself to spend 250+ on on since i have a perfectly good working shell. Ideally it would fold up into 3 of four sections. With a little googling i found this at http://www.355nation.net/forum/how-exterior/18188-how-build-your-own-folding-tonneau.html but i was wondering if anyone has done anything like it with a tacoma? any input would be helpful

 

heres some pics from that link

 

Something like that would only work if you had a locking tailgate. All the pics didnt show up for me, but I did see the one where a bungee cord was holding it down. I dont think any Tacomas have a locking tail gate, so you would have to figure something out to secure it more.

 

i was thinking about having it wrap around the back of the tailgate like an inch. it wouldn't look that clean but it would make it so that in order to open the tailgate it would have to be opened. Or at the moment i have some hooks in my tailgate that i put there myself that i could use to attach some sort of lock to???

 

I know there has a been a couple guys on here that have built there own for 2nd gens but not sure about 1st gens though?

 

You would still need a lock somewhere if you want it to be secure. I bought mine a while ago but I think a pop-n-lock was only like $30 and it wires into the power locks. I put that in with a torzatop tri-fold tonneau. Only way someone can get in my bed is to cut the cover or use a pry bar to break the levers that clamp the tonneau to the bed rails.

 

You could probably incorporate some sort of keyed lock on the cover itself. Maybe try to get it to lock under the bedrail or something. A simple lever type would seem like it would work.

 

I built something like that for my old 71 chev, locking the tailgate is an issue of course. I did it mostly so I wouldn't have to shovel snow out of the box in the winter. It worked great though and I plan the same thing for my Tacoma next winter.

 

yea i was thinking that i would use like a key master lock that goes between the tonneau and the bed. it doesn't need to be bombproof but tamper proof