DiamondBack Covers | Modifications

Picture of the table would be nice.

 

Really? I could see if I said I wanted to strap my wife to the Diamonback but since you asked... It is the same table as this but a bit smaller. It has that same glass top, legs are off and it is shrink wrapped. Need to haul it 70 miles on the highway.

 

@personalt hahaha... no need for any trophy wife pictures.. there's probably another thread for that. Anyway, good luck with your table mission. (PS: you might wanna attach a red flag/rag at the back end of that table or the 2x4s for safety and to avoid an unnecessary conversation w/ the law)

 

If you find one of these hitch extenders, they might help take some of the overhang weight, but might also be hard to line up if less than 9-10' length. Or tailgate down and fabricate something out of wood.

Simple method of moving blanket, then 2x4s, and upside down table should be fine. The weight of the table should keep it from moving if strapped right. The cleats are more than enough in my experience. I hang from them in my hammock.

Good luck man.

 

Can we get a wider shot showing your truck from the side please?

 

I've been known to wrap a tree saver around the blue wagon and just drag it home. got about 6 of those suckers stacked up behind the garage.

 

I have hauled alot of various things on the DB. If in your shoes I would simply use 2 x4's on cover as you stated to keep table above lock mechanism. You will secure that framework to the cleats. Then you just use 2 x 4's to frame the table. Every side will have a lip high enough to keep it from sliding in any direction. Under the table and on your 2 x 4's use folded towels or blankets and if a couple large enough, put around entire table. The weight of the table should keep it settled but I would also take a 2 x 4 and put across the top with soft material on the table side and screw this one to your frame.
May sound time consuming but really isn't. A couple 2 x4's length of table, 4 piece frame and a locking 2 x4 on top.

 

Exactly what he said. Also, if you frequent Lowe’s or Home Depot, you can get the stickers from the lumber department and they make great spacers and they’re free if you don’t have 2x4s just sitting around. Stickers are the wooden spacer boards in the stacks of plywood and other lumber for shipping.

 

Just noticed the request for another side pic of mod...

 

I made a comment on someone's question on LLOD's youtube review on the FRO bed rack on the DB cover (HD/SE). I don't have a structural engineer or construction background, so I don't know how accurate my observation and opinion is on this topic. The original post was asking if installing a bed stiffer helped to keep the bed sides from expanding (flexing/bowing?) or does the diamondback cover help to do that, also. My response was, "...the non-moving center panel of the HD or SE DiamondBack covers clamped on the bedsides kind of act as a brace or cross beam between the left & right sides of the bed. That should help prevent the bed from flexing/expanding to a certain degree. I do remember Mike saying in another video that he added Total Chaos' bed stiffeners to the truck, so it shouldn't hurt to add those, too. His setup has those bed stiffeners at the bed floor corners by the tailgate and the center panel of the DB cover at the top, near or at the center, of the bed that should help to stiffen the bed."

Would any of you agree with my thoughts on that? Obviously, the clamps are just applying a squeezing pressure to the center panel and the bedsides. They aren't bolted down together. I don't know how secure/reliable the clamp fastening system is compared to a bolting fastening system, but it's definitely not as secure.

How many of you use bed stiffeners in conjunction w/ your DB cover? What's the heaviest load you put on the cover? Do you off road and to what degree do you off road? Do you notice if your bed is bowing/flexing/expanding w/ how you use your truck - w/ your DB cover and w/ or w/o bed stiffeners?

I've heard that some prefer bedracks that bolt onto the bed floor instead of attaching to the bed rails or side caps to help prevent the bedsides from bowing out or flexing. However, I've yet to hear any complaints from those who use the latter style of bed racks. The former style will not really work w/ the DiamondBack cover.

 

Hmmm...just with quick read of your post, I would offer the center DB panel has a negligible impact on keeping sides from flexing. If much lateral force is introduce the panel clearly moves under the clamps. Now with that said, I have not noticed any side flex with weight on the cover. If loaded on top the weight is spread over the cover and not along the edges.

But I DO think a bed rack with mounting points above the bed and a fair amount of weight on them introduces lateral forces to the side rails as I can not imagine any rack being stout enough not to flex some under load. This spread by the force of the weight will attempt to push the bed out.
In this scenario the bed stiffeners should be a worthy add. Hard to quantify the effect but they should aid in the rigidity of the bed sides.

The interesting build I followed showed a square steel tubing on top of the DB at four spots to hold a rack and tent. My concern with that is he is putting substantial weight at four points of the top. If I were to do similar, a piece should be put on underside of the DB basically transferring the weight to the bed sides and not flexing the cover under certain conditions.

 

How much did your frontrunner system cost you? Yours is the only system I've seen that allows for opening the front panel. I have the cross bin and don't want to take it out when I have a tent on.

 

I'll need to look up my receipts and sort out my purchases from Front Runner to get the price for the bed rack only. It's a custom build and they helped me piece things together, partly over the phone and partly in-store, last summer around June/July 2018. I bought some of their accessories at the same time I was building the load bars -immediately to bed rack- build, so the total prices on my receipts are mixed with all that. Their customer service manager back then actually already had something similar on his Chevy Colorado, but they didn't have it advertised on the FRO site at the time I called them with my build inquiries (initially, I was using their F-150 bed rack as a reference for my build idea). He had a roll up type tonneau cover; however, his (Bryan/Brian sp?) build served as blueprint for my build on the DB HD cover. I figure my custom build would be close to the price that they have for their Chevy Colorado roll top Slimline II bed rack kit: $1,129.00+tax.

For a more accurate and current pricing, I'd recommend contacting FRO's customer service. There are a variety of length/width/height options for this custom build that would affect the total price of the build. You could start out cheaper with just load bars. You can wait later to upgrade to their Slimline II rack system, or quickly upgrade to them like I did. The bed racks share the exact components needed for the load bars. Because of this other opportunity to customize, I'd recommend contacting Front Runner, refer to LLOD's order (LLOD is a youtube channel, a great one for ideas on the Tacomas and other adventure/stuff; they'll likely have his order history more readily available than mine because of his channel's popularity and more recent build order), and share the ideas for your personal build to get prices.

Keep in mind, if you want to be able to still open the HD/SE front cover panel, then you have to plan a setup that doesn't connect a load bar on the front cover panel to another load bar on the center panel, nor the back cover panel. If anything from the setup will over hang above the front cover panel, then that will limit how far the front cover panel can open depending on how far forward an object overhangs above said panel. I positioned a set of Maxtrax at the underside of the FRO Slimline II bed rack to act as a door stopper for the front cover panel so that it doesn't make contact to the bed rack. This limits how far the cover opens, but it can still allow enough space for me to fit in a snowboarding or mtb helmet, a small tool box, a snow chains container for two stock tires, etc. etc. Also, my setup may not work for some. The tent we use is the Tepui Ayer 2 two person tent, a relatively small tent. If you want a bigger/longer rooftop tent without it hanging over past the tailgate, then you may need to get taller legs with the tall rtt mounts to allow for the rtt to hang over the front cover panel and still allow some room for the front cover panel to open.

Update: I realized I got some prices already that I e-mailed to someone else. Cut and pasted below...

1) Pick-Up Load Bed Tracks / 1200mm(L) - by Front Runner
SKU: TRBU002 - Qty.: 1, Price: $104.00+tax (I forget if that price is for one set of two tracks or just one track. Please call them to verify. I'm not 100% sure going off of the receipt they e-mailed to me. Also, prices may have changed since I bought them last year.),
2) Pick-Up Roll Top Leg Mount - by Front Runner
SKU: LASS028 - Qty.: 2, Price: $150.00+tax (I forget if that price is for one set of two leg mounts or if it's for two sets of two leg mounts each (edited). Please call them to verify. I'm not 100% sure going off of the
receipt they e-mailed to me. Also, prices may have changed since I bought them last year.),

Slimline II Tray - 1475mm(W) X 1358mm(L) - by Front Runner
SKU: RRSTM07 - $698.00+tax.

From what I gather, the only thing "custom" on my build was cutting the tracks. If they sold the lengths I cut mine to, then they could technically sell a specific bed rack kit for Diamondback HD/SE covers.

Man, I should charge Front Runner for the advertising, R&D, and consulting I've been doing for this.... and Diamondback covers while I'm at it, hahaha!

 

Thanks for the detail response! This is great information. I think I could mimic the setup sans the slimline rack and just using bars. I'm looking at smaller tents, decent sized two person or small three person.
Frontrunner is now selling a 140mm track. I haven't gotten a chance to measure the panels yet but this may work for the center panel.

 

@Taco-piper You're welcome! Yup, they do have that 140mm track (even when I was doing my shopping last year). I was kind of in a time squeeze in building this setup prior to a long road trip to Utah for camping with my church family, so I didn't get to experiment much w/ the various track options. Plus, I figured that if I messed something up with the drilling or measurements, then the longer tracks may give me more to work with or cover up for mistakes I may have made. Below is a post I made a while back with other reasons/things to consider on choosing the 140mm track length.

Actually, this was my response to the thread OP. They were thinking of trying those 140mm tracks, also, but I guess they didn't get the help needed back then, somehow, to get the load bars set up the way they wanted.

P.S. Besides getting the measurement of the center panel to see if the 140mm track can fit on it, please double check w/ Front Runner Outfitters to see if the load bar legs will fit on that length of track. I'm guessing it should, but it wouldn't hurt to double check.

 

This is definitely the setup I want to go with. I wish there were more used ones out there. Craigslist is bone dry. Suspension or security...decisions.

 

@MtnBorn I remember seeing a group buy on TW not long ago. I don't know when the deadline for that was/is, but that could be worth checking into. The price was cheaper to get a new one. Some may also be selling their current DB cover to buy a different one; i.e. SE for a HD or 270.

 

That group buy ended February 14th.

 

I’ve got one for a 2nd gen short bed. I haven’t posted it yet because I was seeing how I like a camper shell. I don’t remember the model but it opens front and back, rhino lined exterior. Picture of it on my profile.

 

Check DB's outlet website regularly. They post a lot of factory seconds and used covers. They do a great job of providing pics and explaining what is exactly the defect. Also lifetime warranty is extended to the cover just like a new one.