Hunter
Well-known member
- First Name
- Howard
- Joined
- May 8, 2021
- Threads
- 2
- Messages
- 46
- Reaction score
- 39
- Location
- California
- Vehicles
- Model 3, Nissan Leaf, Toyota Tachoma, Jeeps
- Occupation
- General Contractor, retired / Electronics designer/manufacture & software developer in years past
As a retired general contractor, builder, and professional roofer, the more I think about this roll top cover idea for the CT bed, the more I think it's wrong. It breaks the first law of roofing:
Calking and fancy seals always fail and leak. Put upper layers over top of lower layers, and never the reverse.
How do you build this into the roll top cover for a truck bed? You don't. It's impossible. Therefore, any design of a roll top cover will eventually leak one way or another. The reason is because it breaks the first law of roofing. It's mechanical overlapped wrong.
Now add to this: wind blown rain, and you have a soggy, double leaking problem.
If there is wind, (like driving in rain at highway speeds), then the overlap needs to be more.
I fix roofs on a regular basis where the roofer broke the first law. To makeup for getting the layer order wrong, where they had put lower layers over top of upper layers, they then apply sealant of one sort or another. It works for awhile, then it fails. The roof has to be torn apart, and the positional order of the roofing materials corrected so that upper layers are applied over top of lower layers. It's usually a very expensive repair.
I don't want a leaky back-end on the CT! This really needs to be fixed, and in a really good way.
I have a nice aluminum work shell for my truck. For the most part it doesn't leak. In other words, in the roof and doors, for the most part, they built it so that it mechanically overlaps lower parts with upper parts to keep the wet out.
But still, it leaks at the side seals. They should have overlapped the bed with the shell a little bit.
Where they broke the first rule of roofing, and tried instead to rely on foam sealant, it leaks.
The only way is to design the CT back end, it so that it obeys the first law of roofing is to overlap things correctly.
If you can't do that, then leave it open.
1 - Overlap things mechanically.
Calking and fancy seals always fail and leak. Put upper layers over top of lower layers, and never the reverse.
How do you build this into the roll top cover for a truck bed? You don't. It's impossible. Therefore, any design of a roll top cover will eventually leak one way or another. The reason is because it breaks the first law of roofing. It's mechanical overlapped wrong.
Now add to this: wind blown rain, and you have a soggy, double leaking problem.
If there is wind, (like driving in rain at highway speeds), then the overlap needs to be more.
I fix roofs on a regular basis where the roofer broke the first law. To makeup for getting the layer order wrong, where they had put lower layers over top of upper layers, they then apply sealant of one sort or another. It works for awhile, then it fails. The roof has to be torn apart, and the positional order of the roofing materials corrected so that upper layers are applied over top of lower layers. It's usually a very expensive repair.
I don't want a leaky back-end on the CT! This really needs to be fixed, and in a really good way.
I have a nice aluminum work shell for my truck. For the most part it doesn't leak. In other words, in the roof and doors, for the most part, they built it so that it mechanically overlaps lower parts with upper parts to keep the wet out.
But still, it leaks at the side seals. They should have overlapped the bed with the shell a little bit.
Where they broke the first rule of roofing, and tried instead to rely on foam sealant, it leaks.
The only way is to design the CT back end, it so that it obeys the first law of roofing is to overlap things correctly.
If you can't do that, then leave it open.
Sponsored
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