Truck Covers USA Bed Cover And Truck Rack

The story for finding a prefect truck cover has taken me years. I needed a truck cover that also allowed for the use for a truck rack. You would think that would be something simple to find. However it wasn’t. For a long time I used The Invis-rack system with the soft truck tonneau. I enjoyed the system, and loved how I could fold down the rack easily when not in use, but a soft top really doesn't protect your gear from theft.

Last year Kevin started on the same journey to find the perfect truck cover. He had recently purchased a Toyota Tacoma, and wanted something similar to what I wanted. He didn't necessarily want a full ladder rack system, but some sort of raise rail system that would allow Yakami bars over the truck bed cover. He spend months searching and found the best solution, and that was Truck Covers USA Bed Cover with Yakima Rails. When he showed me his solution, and found out they also have a ladder rack solution, I ordered one of their truck covers and the extended ladder rack. A week later I had it in hand, and the installation started.

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The truck bed cover installation was fairly easy for Kevin. His dropped in, put in some drain holes, and with a little shimming he was good to go. It is a little different with a Ram truck bed. The Ram truck bed tapers where that the cab side is wider than the rear end. This requires 2 mounting brackets to be installed on the truck bed on the cab side. This is done by drilling 3 screws in the truck bed on both sides where the bracket goes. I hate drilling holes in my truck, but thats just the way the truck bed is made, there isn't going to be any choice with really any retractable bed covers because you will need to place draining holes. After I had the mount in, and the main body of truck cover in place, Next came the rails. Once again the taper of the Ram truck bed showed me how important it was to get the shim right on both sides of the rail. Starting from the cab and working my way down both sides, i found myself using the largest shim and then some(shims were all provided) to get it just right. The shimming is the most important part of installing this truck bed, especially if you have a Ram. Once I got the shimming dialed in and drove over some speed bumps to make sure it didnt jar open (probably not recommended by Truck Covers USA), I had a locking truck cover and finally was on my way to having my perfect truck bed set up.

Putting the ladder rack on was fairly easy. There were a few issues with understanding the best way to put it on with the way the Ram truck bed was, but a message to Truck Covers USA had one of there lead engineers calling me and walking me through the best way to do it. Customer service is amazing with this company. I had asked a few questions to them regarding powered coating and performance in cold weather, and they were always quick to respond back or even give me a ring.

I also installed some Yakima Timerline Towers and cross bars to go across my bed.  This gives me a solution for my smaller boats so that I can easily throw a playboat on my my truck and still have my bed free for my adventure gear.  Truck Covers USA also offers thier own custom cross bars if you want to have a one stop shop for all your truck bed needs.

So what do i think 6 months later? Its the perfect truck cover for me. My gear stays dry and protected while out camping. I can use the top rack for my longer boats and canoes, with my lower rack being used for my shorter playboats making it easy to throw up a boat for a quick trip to the lake. Since the cover is retractable, if I am hauling something that is larger than my bed, no worries, just open up the cover and throw it in.

Pros:

• Retractable
• Retracting cover takes up small footprint
• Allows for use of ladder rack or rail system
• Ladder rack system allow allows for a lower rack by attaching a rail system to the bed rails and supports up to 500 pounds
• Ladder rack sidebars allows for the install of addional cross bars and will support 100 pounds.

Cons:

• Full system with ladder rack is expensive compared to soft top covers.
• Installing into a Ram Truck Bed takes some addional shimming time due to the taper of the bed.