Homemade tonneau

Thinking about building my on bed cover . Any ideas , suggestions , or pics ? Thx

 

If you are doing it to raise MPGs don't make it very heavy or you will defeat what you are trying to do.

 

I saw this at the mall a couple months ago, but the picture is crappy. I couldn't tell if it was homemade or purchased, but I've never seen anything quite the same before. Diamond plate, looked sturdy as hell. Looked almost too nice be made at home, but at least the pic may help give you some general ideas.

 

My old boss had this on his Ford F150. It was neat because you can store stuff on top of it, like quads for example. But it was HEAVY! And it folded into 2 halves so you couldn't use it to move a bed or anything like that.

He ended up taking it off after a year or so.

 

Yes mainly for mpg on longer trips, not to concerned about a water tight seal. Thinking about maybe using 1" ridged foam board with some kind of reinforcement for the edges and covering it with some kind of tonneau like material

 

I think this one could be tweaked to fit your needs. Its on a 1st gen.
http://www.tacomaworld.com/forum/1st-gen-tacomas/199316-what-topper.html

 

my homemade plywood tonneau...



sprayed it with 2 or 3 cans of bedliner to help keep water from soaking in.

hinged so I can flip it up and take bed extender out if I need to without taking cover off. Was nice too being able to flip it up and put groceries or whatever between the extender and tailgate and not have to open tailgate

believe it cost me about $60 to make. The bedliner spray was most of the cost.

 

http://www.tacomaworld.com/forum/new-members/200868-new-member-some-great-photos.html

 

Mythbusters did a special where they tested a truck with and without a tonneau, and it got better MPG without one. the tailgate does not actually create a lot of drag it turns out. But this was tested a long time ago on a pickup that wasnt a 2nd gen Taco, so take it with a grain of salt.

 

That's a Diamond Back cover. http://www.diamondbackcovers.com/

 

Don't believe everything you see on Mythbusters. It really depends on the aerodynamics of the truck, cab length, bed length, etc. On older trucks I've had, it's been a mixed bag, sometimes they helped, sometimes they didn't. It did help the mileage a little bit on my double cab short bed. Nothing drastic, only a couple MPG but it did help.

 

Before you go ahead and build search CL and such for a used tonneau. $200 might go farther than you think, even if it needs to be painted you will end u with a better product.
If you still prefer to build something my vote is for 3 black diamond plate sections. Make it a tri fold.

 

I thought it was with or without a tailgate

edit
http://youtu.be/r3aqHbD-O9E

 

You learn something every day. 1 1/2 years of TW addiction and I still hadn't heard about these covers. It's still a bit much for my personal use but that lightweight version is kinda tempting.

 

so did you build???

 

One of the things they tested was with a cover, watch from 4:13.

 

Hi Spidy3, great idea... any building plans or some guides to follow??

 

http://www.tacomaworld.com/forum/2nd-gen-tacomas/102674-homemade-tonneau-cover-pics-how.html

 

Agree with above posts about different results from different trucks. My sport Trac that I traded for my taco got 3 mpg better with and Advanced Folding aluminum tonneau that only weighed about 30 lbs. The heavier they are it will defeat the gains. The OEM tonneaus for the Sport trac were about 75lbs so real heavy!.

That was going to be my first Mod to SnowTaco to have a bed thats dry for a lot of stuff I do but my wife vetoed that because she said the truck was too sexy without it and it would make me look like an old man (im 39)....