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Hey guys...
haven’t been on the forums much at all lately!
But I’m back curious to hear about bed caps.
I want either a leer or are.
Where are you guys getting them? Direct through dealers?
do they come paint to match or have. A body shop match them? Post your pics!!
thanks
Leer and ARE are only available through dealers as far as I know. Factory paints to **sort of** match unless you just get lucky. I have no experience with ARE, but don't expect a high level of craftsmanship from Leer.
Also, good luck if you try to completely seal the tailgate. Ford made that very difficult...gaps at sides are big enough to throw a cat through. Sometime I will post the extreme measures I had to go through to completely seal my tailgate and to completely seal the junction between the cap rear window and the top of the tailgate. Other models may be different, but Leer made no effort whatsoever to achieve a seal at the lower corners on my 180.
Here is mine. I fitted it out with a camping setup (huge project!):
My 2016 Leer (actually, branded as Century), like most others that I have seen, has a giant fibreglass "cowcatcher" add-on sticking out the back, which accumulates on it lots of grit and dirt from the winter roads, plus it isn't sealed to the glass, so anytime the door is lifted with water or mud on the ledge, it runs down the inside of the door. Oh, and the 3rd brake light leaks a fair bit.
The gaps mentioned by "Glitch", above, make it a 10 second job to pop open the canopy door. A paint stir-stick or similar jammed in releases the outer catches. This is on a canopy with a central handle and cables to the catches.
The door on Glitch's unit looks pretty good.
Good Luck!
Last edited by Alan in bc; Oct 13, 2020 at 11:06 PM.
Ahh, yes, the 3rd brake light. I wondered why water cascaded through mine. Leer didn't bother to tighten the screws! At least it was an easy fix.
When I tries to tighten mine, the tiny screws just stripped out the plastic bits. I ended up getting slightly larger SS screws, and to install the light so that it doesn't leak, I removed it completely, thoroughly cleaned the pocket where it goes, cleaned the light as well, and bedded it back with black rubber sealant. (taped off the surrounding surfaces)
Your door looks great, encompassing the shape of the tailgate. Nothing like that was available in 2016, that I know of. (Canada) The cowcatcher add-on looks like an add-on, and leaked until I sealed it too.
(Written as another thunderous rain-shower pounds down...)
Last edited by Alan in bc; Oct 13, 2020 at 11:22 PM.
Hey Alan, mine has the cow catcher, too. Just can't see it in that pic. It is more visible in pic below taken at time of installation.
Note how ridiculously high the window tilts up. I had two issues with that: 1) If window was wet, water would pour off of upper window edge right onto bed and tailgate when raised. 2) It would whack my canoe and lumber carried on the racks. I calculated the strut length needed to stop the window at the point where it was parallel to the ground and bought new struts. These ones: Suspa C1610176 14" Gas Prop, Quantity (2), Force 35 Lbs Per Prop, Force Per Set 70 Lbs.
I have an ARE DCU commercial aluminum cap on mine with double doors on the rear, replacing the tailgate. If I were buying new, now that they're available, I would go with the DCU Max for the thicker material. Installed properly, with some sealant, you can make the bed waterproof.
I also run a Bedrug inside for comfort when I need to crawl around to service the equipment mounted to the front wall.
I have a Leer Cap purchased in March. The paint quality was very poor. It chipped very easily down to the primer and the amount of color and clear appeared very thin.
I took it to a paint shop and he agreed that the color coat did not appear to be bonding well to the primer. He removed all the windows, sanded the paint down to the primer, applied sealer, color and three coats of a top quality clear. The cost was $1100.
Hey Alan, mine has the cow catcher, too. Just can't see it in that pic. It is more visible in pic below taken at time of installation.
Note how ridiculously high the window tilts up. I had two issues with that: 1) If window was wet, water would pour off of upper window edge right onto bed and tailgate when raised. 2) It would whack my canoe and lumber carried on the racks. I calculated the strut length needed to stop the window at the point where it was parallel to the ground and bought new struts. These ones: Suspa C1610176 14" Gas Prop, Quantity (2), Force 35 Lbs Per Prop, Force Per Set 70 Lbs.
Your door is different - mine is all glass with no frame at all. The channel molded into the back of my canopy, with the bulb seal, dumps water onto the carpeted (or whatever the fuzzy stuff is) inside ledges inside the canopy and onto the wide tailgate top, which ridiculously has a raised lip on the outer edge of the plastic top, which traps water on the inside of the tailgate top. A raised lip on the inner side of the tailgate top would make more sense to me.
It looks like you have two handles on your door, where mine has one in the centre of the glass and cables to the outer catches.
I have a Leer Cap purchased in March. The paint quality was very poor. It chipped very easily down to the primer and the amount of color and clear appeared very thin.
I took it to a paint shop and he agreed that the color coat did not appear to be bonding well to the primer. He removed all the windows, sanded the paint down to the primer, applied sealer, color and three coats of a top quality clear. The cost was $1100.
Most all of them have paint work that is acceptable at best. If you're really picky (and this is what I'll do when I replace this truck, if I go with the same platform) you can have it shipped simply primed, then take the cap to your choice of body shop/paint guy to get painted however you see fit.
Bed camper shell/cap
