DIY hard tonneau cover

One of the jobs i'm thinking about once the weather gets a bit warmer is making myself a hard tonneau cover for my 90 pickup. I've been pondering the pros and cons of various solutions from chequer plate to off the shelf soft covers but have decided on making one from Phenolic coated plywood. This is the stuff they use in trailer beds and seems to be as tough as ply gets if all the edges are sealed.
Planning on bolting a 6" section to the bulkhead and using a piano hinge to connect the main section. The edges of the ply i'm going to be sealing and then covering in j-section aluminium to protect from knocks.
The the thing i'm struggling with is trying to find and source a decent way of holding the whole thing down. Some sort of latch that comes down and uses the existing tailgate fixings would be good but i've not found the right one yet.
Any ideas on this or how i could improve this would be appreciated.

i also thinking of doing a cover for mine in the summer i watch this thread with interest!


lee

I started to do one, got as far as making the frame and cutting the chequered plate to fit but I needed it done for a trip to the UK so i just bolted it down in the end, worked fine except when you need something from the back.

I used angle iron to make a frame and it locked onto the tailgate locks.

If you use piano hinges is it not going to leak water though it?

I have changed it to a hardtop now

I'll be making one for mine at some point too, folded and tig welded checker plate with gas rams at the corner to lift it up, lock on the tailgate and thats about it really, will also need to be round the roll hoop mounts

there is another one on here somewhere that looked good... the sides had been folded

here it is

steve-o said:

Click to expand...

It's the hinged latches that i'm finding it hard to source. Need them to bolt to the tonneau and hang down and go over the tailgate locking mech. This way i can put in a padlock and lock the whole thing in one go.
Gas rams are also part of the plan as well and got a few ideas on how to make the hinge waterproof

could you not make one ? its just a hinge so couple of blocks with notches cut and a hole followed by a pin welded at one end so it wont come out and then a hole to allow the tailgate piece in