nobody wrote:

Hi All,

Picked up a tonneau cover for my Tacoma work truck. Unfortunately, my tool
boxes are a few inches too tall to use an ordinary bedslider. The tonneau
cover will not close.

Have any of you folks built a bed slider where the plywood bed sits very
close to the truck bed? If so, got any tips on the plywood bed/ slider-
roller mechanism?

I would seriously be in your debt. Thx!

Ray

It would depend on your fabrication abilities.

If I wanted to build such a slider I would use
Unistrut/Powerstrut/Superstrut as the slider rails, with the open
channel facing up and probably three rails to limit the plywood span
between rails.

Make roller trucks from two pieces of 2"x2"x1/8" angle paired together
to make a "T" with the top mounted to the ply and the leg sitting in the
strut track. Cross drill and bolt two pears of ball bearings to the leg
of the "T" to act as rollers, sized just under the height from the
bottom of the strut to the bottom of the rolled lip so that the bearings
roll on the bottom of the track with a load on the plywood and if there
is lift from cantilever they roll on the rolled lip of the strut. Cut
the leg of the "T" down as needed to minimize height.

A bolt across the strut will serve as the stop to keep the slide from
pulling too far out. Make the middle back roller trucks a bit longer and
add a cross hole at the back to use for a lock pin.

This should give you about 2" high sliders, perhaps 1 3/4" if you can
set the strut into the bed ribs. If you really want lower, then do a 1
1/2" body and bed lift on the truck and recess the sliders into the bed
almost entirely. The other option is to get some 2x4 and 2x2 tubing and
make a lift for the cap to raise it up for clearance, but you'll have to
do the matching lift on the tailgate so the cap door can close properly.