A.R.E DCU not seating on bed caps

I picked up my used ARE cap today. It appears that the front header rail on the bed is slightly higher than the sides of the bed creating a gap that progressively gets smaller towards the back.
Is there a fix for this, is something wrong or just live with it?
There is no seal installed(yet) and the clamps are pretty snug. Also, what seal you all using between the bed and top? Those ridges and gaps on the bed rail caps make it a PITA to seal

 

The front rail sits higher on all Tacomas. My Leer shell and others when I was curious about the shape all accounted for the height difference and sit flush. Someone welded that cap up without thinking about the height difference. Even with a seal, it's not going to sit well structurally and clamping down will put way more force in select areas versus spread out. Would need rigid shims across the side rails now.

 

Looking at it a little closer today I notice that the header bar isn’t the problem, even with the shell pulled back off the header it still doesn’t sit flat so something is a little tweaked

 

Man, I swear ARE just hands a monkey a welder and puts them to work. To the best of my recollection, the welds in every one of their aluminum caps I've seen, going back years, look like that. And yeah, the engineers at Toyota who designed the craptastic bed in the Tacomas should be unemployed along with the ARE welders.

This reminds me I need to pull my CX and replace all of the seals (and replace the window felt). I bought the foam, just been too lazy to do it.

 

double up on the seal along the sides

 

Got two days of rain coming that should be a good leak test

 

We had heavy rain last week; yep, I shoved some extra weather stripping I had on hand in the front left corner. My neighbor was going to help me pull the shell this weekend but something else came up. Maybe next weekend if it's not cold or raining (the adhesive doesn't stick well the colder it is and I want to make sure it doesn't move when reseating the shell). I can't complain about the install job since mine's been on since 2006 and didn't start leaking until recently, the seals have exceeded their lifespans.

 

It doesn’t have any bottom seals on yet, they were completely flattened out so i just pulled them off when I picked it up the other day.What kind of seals do you use?
My concern is the side doors and tailgate window, seals look good so hopefully I won’t have to mess with them

 

Honestly, I have no idea what seals ARE uses on the DCU and other aluminum shells. For going under the shell, if you scroll down into the Amazon links below this thread there is this:

$40 ESI Super Cap Seal XL 23 FT (2 1/8" Width x 1/2" Height x 23' Length) EPDM Rubber for Caps Over 200 lbs

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BNGBXOC Several others here recommended it so it's what I ordered and have on hand along with the thicker piece that was recommended; you may have to do a search to get the part descriptions though. I have a fiberglass CX (cab high) though.

The window channel felts in my side windows (screened sliders) have dried out and and is falling out; the windows still work but the top parts are hanging down. Pretty sure I'm going to have to pull the windows to rebuild those but I really need to look at them closer and do some online research. The front sliding window seems to be OK.

The rear window on mine uses a seal along the bottom and a rubber flap. I can't remember which seal is uses on the inside but the flap is this one with a "T" fitting: https://truckoutfittersplus.com/tru...oor-Seals/topper-door-seal-single-leaf-t.html They have several styles available: https://truckoutfittersplus.com/truck_topper_parts/Topper-Door-Seals.html Protip- leave the ends sticking out a couple of inches. Yes, it'll look kinda janky but the stupid thing shrinks; I left about an inch on either side and I've re-centered it and have about 1/2" maybe on either side. The bulb seal that goes around the opening is equally crap. https://truckoutfittersplus.com/tru...als/topper-door-perimeter-seal-t-channel.html I replaced the flatted factory piece and the replacement is flattened out now too. When I redo it again I'm going to try to find some of that round window foam that'll fit and push it in before installing the bulb seal. I'm thinking maybe if I run a string through and put some sort of lubricant on it I can pull it through, maybe while blowing some compressed air at low volume to keep it open. It'll still need to compress some, but hopefully that'll help it retain it's rounded shape better for longer since the stuff isn't cheap for just a couple of pieces of rubber trim. I had a couple of links to places that sold shell pats saved but it looks like some of them have closed up shop; the links I posted are just what I could find still active in my saved bookmarks. You may be able to get replacement parts through your closest ARE dealer but they were a more expensive and were having issues getting parts from ARE at the time (and they're a large volume commercial shell dealer so I guess ARE was having supply issues).

Adding a tailgate seal helps as well. Mine's starting to come loose at this point but I may be able to clean it up and reapply it using some spray adhesive.


I know it sounds like I come down hard on these shell manufacturers but after owning a couple, dealing with ones on trucks at work and looking at friends' shells, most of them are just not that well built in my opinion. Snugtop seems to be better made and the ARE shells I saw in Australia (and another brand they had there that I can't recall) were actually nicely done with higher quality throughout including the hardware.

 

Thanks for all the info and the links it’s a big help! I had the ESI seal double bubble seal in my cart at Amazon, didn’t see the triple bubble so thanks for the link. What do you use for the shell to bed seal on the front since it’s a lot narrower than the sides? I would think just foam tape?
The round window foam you are referring to is called backer rod, I use it on the door seals on old Fords I work on, the 30-40 year old seals are better quality than aftermarket crap they just flatten out, I pull it through with thin wire and use silicone spray lube, it’s a real PITA and sometimes I can’t get it through.

 

This is a bigger picture of what I have. No sliding windows but I’m hoping the side flip up doors seal well.
It’s only three years old and not a scratch on it so for 500.00 I couldn’t pass it up, since I have the 2.7 I had to save weight by going aluminum. Plan is to Raptor line it black put it back on and work on sealing it up

 

I used a roll of butyl for mine, mine sat flush so I used the flat stuff. In your case I’d opt for two rows of the stuff in the pic below, and a bead of black silicone on the outside for good measure. Make sure to get a “caulk tool”. I normally use my finger for caulk but silicone is a PITA.
The butyl could be used for your windows as well if needed.