Soft canopy

Just bought a "Softopper" canopy for my 07 4X4 Tacoma short bed. Pretty slick unit. Didn't need to drill any holes and the hold down clamps work in the bed's side-rails. Easy to install. Like the vendor recommends I sealed the inner stitched seams & so far no problems w/ rain (I live in NW WA). 1 suggestion: Use a velcro strip at the head of the truck bed to prevent the cover's front from lifting up during travel. It doesn't lift up very much, but this will prevent rain water from coming in. Check out their website & you'll see how it folds down as well.

 

Would it be possible to get a picture of your velcro strip? Do you think it will be easy to remove in the future if you ditch the softtopper? I guess I don't understand why the front rail cannot be used in some way to hold the front flap down...

 

No photo right now, but... Attached to the bottom of the canopy's front "wall" is a flap of material which drapes over the truck bed's front wall. Visualize it as an inverted letter "U" - the base is attached to the canopy's front (at the bottom) with the legs hanging below it (one between the back of the cab & the second inside the truck bed). The canopy comes with both preinstalled snap "buttons" and a velcro strip (both on the flap hanging in the bed). To use the buttons install the snap's counterpart male posts - via drilling into the bed's wall. Here is where the bed's front rail could possibly be used, but you'll need to create your own way of anchoring to/into it. I didn't want to drill & mount the posts so I installed a horizontal strip of velcro onto the bed's wall. Not to the "top" of the bed's wall, but vertically below it and horizontally on the side of the wall. Line it up with the flap's strip & press together. If you take the canopy off, the wall's strip stays but is not atop the bed's wall. Make sense?