Let's See Some Softoppers

I googled brake t harness and found a lot of vendors claim to have them in stock about $30.

 

Thank you! I’m not sure the 2nd gen has the same access through the bedside caps as the 3rd gens do. If you ever fold down the Softopper or remove it, do you store the wire anywhere or do you let it dangle?

As for the T harness I bought mine from FBC just before he closed up. Another guy is still supporting that particular business, but I don’t think he’s pushing out the same quantities of harnesses. When I was shopping around I did see other businesses selling similar products but FBC at the time had really good reviews and was decently priced.

I did some measurements and I’m liking the thought of running the wire through the front cubby. I could use it to store the loose wire whenever I fold up the topper or remove it from the bed.

 

I used the fbc harness too. I ran it down the support of the softopper and unplug it when folded up

 

Thanks! I'm looking forward to having some extra room for gear when camping.

 

This is an awesome setup! Glad Softopper could be a part of it!

 

The Softopper is a very fine adittion to the pick-up. Useful for camping, keeps stuff dry, not so useful for keeping dust out ;-)
Snow doesn't collect in the bed all winter. Keeps my snow skis out of the weather.
I can take the entire assembly off and stow it away in less than five minutes.
And It LOOKS GOOD!

The Thule rack really adds utility for ladders and sheet goods.

The only pain with the combo is when I want to carry one of my motorbikes. ;-(

 

Ya wanna see some more close up pic. Can you fold wit Bars in place. & could you slide stern all way foward.. ? & way it attaches to bed rails in conjunction wit Softopper.

 

Got my Prinsu mounted on the WildTop.
I had to make some custom brackets out of 3/16" steel to get it to sit flush with the cab rack. And I had to move the front and rear bars outwards about an inch to get them over the mounting holes on the WildTop.

 

https://twstatic.net/attachments/img_20210613_153321855_hdr-jpg.4755722/

Pull the ST folding frame off the pivot pins to fold.
Rear Thule bar can be mounted close to the front bar. (four bolts)

 

Found this Softopper and rack on marketplace. It’s still in really good condition. I need to touch up the rack, might sand it all down and paint it with bedliner

 

loving the softopper, especially the flexibility. In the space of a few weeks I had it off to haul big stuff, then back on to haul 5 bikes. I also spent 3 nights camping in the bed with the sopftopper and the topper tent. Kept me dry through 5 hours of rain!

Next thing I want is a rack for an awning.

 

How was getting Topper tent? Take long were they ok to deal with ? Been thinking bout one but haven’t pulled trigger.

 

I ordered it while it was on backorder but it still took several months to arrive due to the company having to switch suppliers. Hopefully that is resolved now. No issues with it although i think one of the velcro zipper parts is wrong, but it doesn’t impact the tent much. I also plan on waterproofing it more. Could just be because every time i have it out it rains 2 inches…

generally speaking, the topper tent is great, i highly recommend as the competing versions do not pack up as nicely and seem to take a lot more time to set up. It works with my tailgate pad too

 

Thanks for the link....I ended up getting the same hardware

 

Installed my Softopper 3rd Brake Light (AC-3RDBL-STD) today! I’m glad they finally came up with a design, because the one I was thinking about building would have been way more complicated and way more expensive. Below is how I did the wiring:

I installed the light and zip tied the connected cable along the driver’s side support per Softopper’s instructions.



Don’t worry, I cleaned up the zip tie ends later.

From here is where Softopper tells you to go to a shop. What I did instead was I bought a brake light T harness from FBC when they were still in business (there are others that you can buy) and I also bought some Powerwerx Powerpole connectors to connect the T harness to the Softopper power harness. Below is the Softopper power cable that I shortened and added the new Powerwerx connector and the T harness with the other Powerwerx connector:





I wanted to somehow hide as much cable as possible while also being able to store the excess cable if/when I remove the Softopper. I elected to run the second power cable along the rail and into the forward cubby, then back to the driver’s side tail light.





In order to run the cable through the cubby, I had to remove it. For those that are curious the cubby is held by two plastic clips molded to the bottom of the cubby and some foam adhesive. Fair warning, you will break the plastic clips if you try to remove either of these cubbies. Below is a photo of the broken clips and the foam adhesive.



Once the cubby was out, I drilled a hole on the lower rear portion of the cubby and then widened it to allow the wire connectors to pass through it. I added 1 additional hole above so I could use a zip tie to secure the wire and prevent the connector from falling through, if not in use.



Putting everything back in was pretty quick after this. Simply plug everything thing in and cinch down the zip ties.



Best of all, it all worked when I tested it out!

One concern I have after looking at the install is, how would you secure the 3rd brake light if you remove all the fabric from the metal supports/frame? I removed the fabric this last spring to clean and add the UV protective coating, which made it a lot easier. If I were to do that now, the light would be dangling from the metal frame. I’m tempted to add one more connector near the 3rd brake light so I can remove it without cutting all the zip ties.

 

I am about to go on a road trip and did a bolt check on the topper and found a couple loose bolts on horizontal bed rail that hold the vertical support brackets.
When I installed them I didn't use loctite so I removed all 8 bolts and put blue loctite on them.

Might be worth checking on yours.

 

Will do....thanks for the heads up

 

Took my daughter camping and we elected to put the Softopper to the camping test. First time I slept in the topper and not in a tent near the truck. Overall I think the trip was successful, but 2 concerns I had were:

1. Top of the list was how hot it was in the back. Outside air temps were 71° when we went to bed and bottomed out at 65° around 6am. It wasn’t hot out but the topper seemed to be retaining heat more than I had thought it would. I’m curious how others account for this. Obviously you open up the sides, but without mesh you’re inviting mosquitoes to a smorgasbord. @AK Dudeman I’m curious what you do since you are constantly posting camping trips in your topper.

One idea I saw was custom made mesh like this YouTuber did, but I’m not looking to custom fab anything here soon.

2. The tri-fold 4” foam bed wasn’t as comfortable as I thought it would be. It wasn’t a dealbreaker but I’m curious what others are doing for sleep as well. I had looked at AirBedz originally but I didn’t like how high it sat in the bed losing valuable headspace. I saw a lot of good reviews for Hest beds, but that is pretty costly…

 

I built a screen for mine using nylon screen bought at HD
I used the the back panel as a pattern but left it long to hang down over the tail gate
Bought Velcro with adhesive strips so it attaches to Velcro on topper
Don’t drive with it on but attach when i get to site
Let’s the topper air out- works pretty good and inexpensive
I posted on here about a year ago -ill see if I can find link

Found it-Post 8129

 

Just found it, thank you! Funny enough I saw @Saturnine ‘s post below it too