ARE bed cap coming. What could I be doing to get ahead of things?

What are some of the things you wish you would have done before your bed cap was delivered?

 

IDK. Move the fridge?

 

Drink more beer.....


Clean your rear window. And clean the glass on the shell. Gets hard to reach lol

 

Put foam weatherstrips or black silicone seal the holes in the front top bed wall corners, get your wiring started to install a light,

and most importantly (seriously!) check that the bed is square with the cab of the truck- mine was not square and I had to remove the cap to have it done with my Toyota warranty.

 

Pull your bed side covers off and seal under them, I used a quality black silicone. Then seal the head rail , remove it,bead of silicone underneath. Then the gap between the head rail and the side covers. Get a good tailgate seal. Do a search on here for more tips.

 

Bed being straight. That's one I probably would not have considered. Will do all of this. Where do most people run the 12V wires and to which fuse number do they attach it?

 

Are you installing a bed cap or foldable cover? I had a cap before...did not like it due to having to remove it for any kind of height above bed sides forward. Even if the load is to the rear, you have to tie down the rear of the lifted cap making rear view mirror useless. The vast majority of new installs are foldable or retractable with makes much more sense for me. Just a thought.

 

Consider getting bed stiffeners before your cap weight can warp the bed. Totally something that can be done after putting on the cap though.
I find the additional tie-down points very useful.

 

Subd

 

What are everyone’s thoughts on bed stiffeners? Don’t need if only topper is going on? Suggested if topper + rack + goodies are going on top too? Can a topper actually warp the bed walls? It seems the topper weight would be pretty welll distributed along the 3 walls (if it’s topper only).

 

I'd agree alone should be fine. I believe that the topper itself has a degree of structural integrity that would help to keep things from flexing out.

 

Plus one for the bed stiffeners, piece of mind.

 

I guess it also wouldn't hurt having the extra stiffness for when I throw the XT250 in the back and strap her down to the sides.

 

I have Total Chaos bed stiffeners, great product. They also additional tie down points on them, very handy.

 

Thanks! Never heard of bed stiffeners until now, but yes, they would be helpful: 200 lbs on the Z-series cap, way too much camping stuff in the bed, rack above, with a pirogue or fishing kayak on it. Will research these for sure.

 

I seriously don’t see the point of bed stiffeners, just because you install a shell. All the fear mongering because of the composite bed I don’t get it- I had a sport trac previously which has a composite bed and had a shell installed for 9 yrs straight and it didn’t have any issues people warn about Here.

I didn’t have any extra weight on the shell either… maybe that matters but I think imo it’s worthless just for a standard shell install. If my bed walls collapse after I install my shell I will personally apologize to everyone that suggested the stiffeners

Just my 2 cents

 

Bed stiffeners do a couple of things. One is true up your bed or at least help true it up. The second thing it does, believe it or not, is improve your ride by stiffening that bed from roll flex and moves a lot of that stress to the stiffeners. I love mine. Actually improved the feel of my ride.

 

im Sorry, I don’t see it under normal driving circumstances or just adding a shell to be beneficial or necessary just because of it being a composite bed.

Obviously do whatever gives you piece of mind but I have had experience with a composite bed and shell with no issues so that’s what I’m basing my decision on (granted it wasn’t a Tacoma)

 

That's fair. A lot of it might be subjective. In some cases depending on the cab installation might actually help true up beds on their own. Even without a bed cab, if you do any off roading, those stiffeners are a real boon imho.

 

I have had an ARE MX cap for just a year on my 17 TRDOR. I didn’t use bed stiffeners and have had no issues with bed warping. Ive been on several trips with a rack on top and about 80lb worth of stuff. Lots of rough dirt roads. I was in Death Valley for three days a few weeks back.

Biggest issue is sealing up all the holes and gaps in the bed. I agree on the front bed rail. Get some black silicone and seal that up. Much easier to do with no cap on. Also I was not happy with the front seal that comes with the cap so I replaced it.

The rear window on the ARE doesn’t seal well at the corners. There is a huge gap. I used left over tailgate seal to fill in those gaps.

Even with all the gap sealing, I still get dust in. On my trip to Death Valley I got into some really fine dust near Eureka Dunes. It got through the seals a bit. I need to follow up to see if I can fix this.