Can anyone foresee any issues with strip building a truck cap? My baby (1975 Jeep J20) is done and on the road, but it needs a cap. The bed is narrower than standard, so the run of the mill 8' cap won't fit, and finding an old Jeep one is like finding leprechaun gold. I could have one custom made but that is north of $1500.
I have plenty of Douglas fir strips cut that I never used, and could pull side windows from a donner.
Is there something I'm missing, or couldn't I just laminate and cut "ribs" and strip and glass the cap just like a canoe?
There may be some applicable lessons in this CLC link, including the installation of (extrapolated trailer) truck cap roof racks for the canoe(s). I’m not sure how fir strips would do with a canoe or two on the racks, but guess adequate bracing could be incorporated.
http://www.clcboats.com/shop/boats/recreational-vehicles/clc-teardrop-trailer.html
With a DIY cap I would be tempted to buy a set of construction racks that cantilever off the truck’s bedrails, instead of placing the weight atop the strip built cap shell.
I like the custom strip built or stitch & glue cap idea, but I’m lazy and don’t much care how it looks as long as it works. For a truck (Jeep) bed cap I would probably look for a used cap I could adapt to fit.
We put a used $75 cap on my bro-in-laws Chevy LUV.I bought it off the side of the road and tied it to my roof racks upside down (it was luckily a half mile from my home).
It all sorts of didn’t fit, 4 inches too short (?) and a bit too wide. We just bolted on some 6 inch wide horizontal wood bed rails and made it work. There was a redneck hack 4 inch gap between the cab and front of the cap, but he was living in Tennessee anyway, and everything met up well at the tailgate end.
If you enjoy strip building or stitch & glue a custom wood cap could be uniquely attractive, and I can appreciate that it is a ’75 J20
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeep_Gladiator
But unless you want a custom show truck lid or remarkably stylish camper enclosure I’d find a used truck cap that
almost fit and adapt that, maybe as simply as using some (attractively stained and varnished) 2x6’s bolted along the bedrails for fitment play.
Sliding or louvered side windows, and maybe even screens, already there. Cap door, already there. Maybe even a sliding front cap window.
I’m a lazy shade tree tinkerer, and that existing cap adaptation seems way easier, and probably less expensive, than figuring out how to hang windows and cap doors and such.
