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Tips

TR2/3/3A Installing Tonneau Cover - TR3

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martx-5

martx-5

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I just got a new tonto cover from Moss yesterday, and of course, I have to install all the Lift-the-Dot snaps.

What I need is advice on the best way to proceed with this job. Where do I start, and how should I move around from peg to peg to insure a nice fit?? Also, I don't have one of those fancy punches for making the holes for the snaps, so what can be substituted?
 
Hi Art - I installed my own new soft top (not a tonneau), but found these ideas helpful. I didn't have the "magic high priced tool" either, so just used a small pointed-tip metal punch over a block of wood. No problem.

I let the top (your tonneau) soften in mid-day sun, laid out "flat". Then I laid it over the top frame to get a feel for what was to come. Also made sure no LTD studs were missing.

I marked a center line on the vinyl, front to back. Removed the top, made the first punch at center back, matching the position of the studs.

Attached the first LTD to the vinyl, bent the "teeth", snapped it in place over the stud. Then worked outward from the center, alternating left and right - punching, adding LTD, then snapping in place - until the top was completely fastened.

Lesson learned: don't just "mark the positions of all the punches", then try to punch them all at once. It'll never fit. I had to mark them one by one, attach to the stud, then mark the next, etc.

Hope that helps.
Tom
 
When I installed my tonneau, I purchased a punch from a marine supply company for much less than the auto supply companies charged, and even got a few spare LTD pieces. Just make sure you do not fit it on a warm day, or when you try to mount it in cool weather it won't stretch far enough to mount easily...
 
I bought a canvas hole punch at the local Ace Hrdwre. A plier type tool with a spur wheel on one jaw to vary the hole size and an anvil on the other. Pretty reasonable and works well.
 
First step is to be sure the cover you have will match all the studs. The front corner studs were moved farther out at TS28875, but none of the tonneau cover makers seem to take this fact into account. Charles Runyon said he was going to have some made in the proper pattern for cars between TS28875 and TS41742; but apparently it never happened. On TS39781LO, I wound up installing the early cover slightly off to the passenger's side, so it could catch the passenger side front stud (allowing me to drive with it installed over the passenger seat) and just leaving it off on the driver's side.

I've always done it with just a sharp X-acto knife. Push the fabric down on the stud so you can see where the stud pushes up, then hold the bottom plate of the fastener on top, and poke the tip of the X-acto blade through each of the 4 slots. Try not to stab your fingers or snap the blade (but fingers heal and blades are cheap
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) Now lift the fabric away from the stud, and install the upper half of the fastener, forcing the 4 legs through the slits you made. Put the bottom plate over the legs, and crimp the legs. (I find that my water pump pliers work well for crimping legs.) Trim away the excess material through the hole in the bottom, and you're done with that snap.
 
Thanks guys for all the tips. I wound up making a punch for the main hole at work.

TR3driver said:
First step is to be sure the cover you have will match all the studs. The front corner studs were moved farther out at TS28875, but none of the tonneau cover makers seem to take this fact into account. Charles Runyon said he was going to have some made in the proper pattern for cars between TS28875 and TS41742;...
Click to expand...

Good tip Randall. I checked that out first. I have a post 60k body, so the tonneau I ordered did go down to the front corner stud. The old tonneau I had from the other body (TS23677L) did not reach that stud. Not that I was going to use it, as it has seen better days...besides, PO dyed it a cruddy brown color. :sick:

Thanks again. Hopefully I'll have this done in the next day or two.
 
My recently acquired 4a tonneau is a little tight despite stretching it by hanging with weights attached. My simple fix is very short webbing straps with male and female dome snaps to be used as extensions at the windshield end of things
 
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