Video Transcript for Fas-Top Traveler Roll-up Tonneau & Soft Truck Topper Combo Install - 2023 Ford F-150

Hi, I'm Matt with etrailer. Today we're gonna be talking about the Fas-Top tonneau cover and truck topper combo on our 2023 Ford F-150. Now, this may be a great option if you want something that's gonna be adaptable with you along the road and it's gonna be fairly affordable for this type of setup. So let's check it out. So what's cool about this is you don't have to sacrifice having a tonneau cover or a truck topper since they do work together. And I can show you that a little bit more in detail right now.

So when we compare this to other truck toppers out there, typically, if you want to remove it, it's gonna be quite a hassle because it can be fairly heavy, kind of large. This one rolls up right into our bed. So that's something really nice about it. Let me get this hooked up here at the top and I'll fold it in a little bit more on the sides. I fold it on the sides, really easy to do.

It's gonna be hook and loops. (hook and loop scratching) Pick up, unzip at the back, just like the front we did, and then throw it over. Same thing for the other side. (hook and loop scratching) Once that's done, just do these cam buckles or loosened them up some, and then we can fold it inwards. That's what's really cool about this is this is gonna fit in your F-150's bed just fine.

And we even have a short bed, 5 1/2 foot, and it still leaves plenty of room back there. As you're gonna see it right here, those fold up, just like that. Take this underneath too. And then that tonneau cover, you'll just do undo both buckles. So there will be a little bit of back and forth.

If you have a friend to help you out with it, it'll be pretty much just cut that time right in half. Then we unroll it. No problem at all. And cinch it down into place, just like this. Now, why might you want a tonneau cover and a truck topper Why not one versus the other Oh, you might run into a couple different circumstances in life where maybe if you just have that tonneau cover, you have a item that's a little bit taller that won't fit back here, and that truck topper comes into play. But on the flip side of things, the truck topper is kind of large and you might not want that much space taken up on the back of your bed all the time. That's why it's nice to kind of have both options. And let's say later on down the road, you'd really want a ladder rack. This actually leaves room to actually put a ladder rack made by Fas-Top on here as well. So it's really dappled down the road. Now we're gonna fold out the truck topper so we can talk about more of the parts of this when it's up. So I do that, I'm just gonna lift this arm up and around, lift from the bottom till it comes up. Now that's something I do notice sometimes. There is a little bit of resistance with that tonneau cover. You can adjust where this pivot's from. You're just gonna have this pivot arm here. You can either move this up or down, depending on your fitment. And once you get to this point, grab it from the front, unfold it like that, and then cinch it down. And this is cool too because you'll notice, let's say, you're just kind of hanging out with some friends, you can leave this open, or you're doing some tailgating, that'll be just fine. Now, if you wanna drive like it in this position, then there are gonna be these straps that a Fas-Top makes to hold this down into place, so it could be more in a open mode. But you still are gonna have to put these back windows down 'cause this does cinch into place. And something I do appreciate about this are gonna be the windows themselves, 'cause these are also gonna be replaceable if anything we inchesre to happen. Maybe you've got something in the back of your truck that punctures these, that's definitely there. But they are gonna be slightly tinted. So it's harder to see in here from the outside. But I did notice, when I am in the back of here, it really doesn't block my visuals too much. That's gonna be great because when you are backing up, you wanna be able to see through this. So I do wanna get a couple measurements to see how it's gonna be fitting in here. So going from the bottom of our bed to the top of this, we're gonna have around 43 inches of space in here. So that's something to take into account if you have any larger items. But again, you can put this down. And then, for the total area, this is gonna be sitting on your bed, the height from our bed rails right here, that's gonna be roughly around 22 inches if we go from the center. So that kind of gives you an idea if you're gonna make it through any low-clearance areas. But for the most part, it should be almost level with your cab height. So, overall, I do think this is gonna be a solid choice for anyone who is looking for something that can do a lot of different things and save you space on the back of your bed. Now there are gonna be a lot of other truck toppers out there, but again, none of the other ones can really fold up. And this one does just a good as a job at keeping the elements out from the back of your truck as the other options do as well. Now when it comes to the installation process, it is a fairly simple one, but we do talk about some tips and tricks to make it a little bit easier. Now, if you do decide to go with this, let us know how it's working for you in either a comment, review. But without anything else, let's jump onto it. So to start off with, we can put on our rails. I already did to the other side, but it's gonna be the same process. So when you're doing this, you wanna make sure it's in the right orientation. We want to make sure this latch was on the tailgate side. And the way this should sit on here is kind of just rusting on your bed rails. You might have to hold it in place just a little bit. Once we get it there, we're gonna slide it all the way back until it makes contact with the bulkhead side of your bed. Once we've done that, then we start grabbing our clamps. And before we get those clamps in place, you're gonna notice we have some nuts, or square nuts, in this channel right here. So we wanna put those into the correct spots. So if you look at your instructions, that's gonna be some locations for your clamps go. Clamp 1's gonna be close to the bulkhead, clamp 2 in the middle, clamp 3 closest to your tailgate. So look in those instructions, they'll give you a measurement, and we're gonna measure to the very front of a rail to where this needs to be. And we're just gonna adjust this it's in the right spot at each one of these locations. So we can loosely install our clamps for right now. So that's gonna involve one of these bolts, a washer, and the clamp itself. That hole on there should be on the inside of your bed. Push that through here and line it up with that square nut. You're just gonna thread it into place. If you got something in your way, 'cause sometimes you might have some tabs, you can just adjust this a little bit so it does fit. So that's what I'm gonna do in my case today. Once we get around them, we're gonna repeat that same process for #2 and 1. And again, we're just gonna loosely install 'em for right now. And we're gonna come back through and we're gonna go to point 3 and 2, and we're gonna fully tighten this down. Clamp 1, we are still gonna leave loose for right now. And we're gonna do this whole process on the other side. (ratchet cranking) So we're gonna grab our tonneau cover now, and we're gonna make sure it's in the right orientation. So right now, I have mine buckled up. That buckle here should be closest to your bulkhead side. We'll walk it over here and we're gonna slot it. We have this opening, and it should be a little cutout where this sits. And on that cutout, there's gonna be a hole. There's also gonna be a hole right here. We wanna line those up because I'm gonna make sure this is nice and centered. And we're gonna do that to both sides. Once you get that roughly lined up, you might have to wiggle it around a little bit. Then you can come back through with some flange nuts that's gonna come with your kit, and we're gonna get underneath there and tighten them down. Now, if you're kind of struggling giving this a line up, you might have to wiggle this as you're doing it, but it should grab on. I'm just gonna hand tighten it first and I'm gonna do that to the other side. And now I'm just gonna tighten it down, (ratchet cranking) just making sure it's nice and snug, like I did with the other hardware on here. And then I'm gonna come to clamp 1 and then snug this one down too. (ratchet cranking) Now we're gonna undo our buckles, and we're just gonna make sure this tonneau cover feels good and we don't have any issues rolling it out, that it's centered, and that's gonna latch properly. (tonneau cover latching) Should you have a little bit of resistance when you lower it down. Hear that click, that sounds good. Everything is reaching over here how it should. And then what I like to do is just test that latch. (latch popping) And if it latches on both, unlatches on both sides, it might catch again. And if it does, you might have to just adjust these latches. Again, you can loosen these two bolts, either push it closer to yourself or away from yourself, and that should adjust your fitment here. Now we can move over to again the topper set up. So you're gonna have this pivot point. Now, if your isn't yours is already set up, basically you're gonna have that rod, we'll have the two nuts on there, and we're gonna have this plate that connects to it. It's gonna go into that center hole right here. We'll just make sure this is pretty tight on the side. You're gonna have another nut, thread it onto the backside, and we're gonna snug that up with a socket and wrench. (ratchet cranking) And we're gonna do this for both sides. And we're gonna grab the pivot arm, and we want it to be in this orientation with that rod higher up. And we're to find these two nuts here that we have in between clamp 2 and 1. We're gonna skew those down with a bolt and a washer. And we are gonna have a measurement for this. You might want to adjust yours later on. I've already done that. And I'll talk a little bit more why here in a minute. But for now, we're just gonna line it up with that line and tighten it down. Want you to tighten these down with your socket and wrench, then we can come over here to this piece here. So you're gonna notice, we have some hook and loop on each corner right next to those grommets. We wanna make sure it's in this orientation, so when we go to use this later on, it wraps up, it connects like this. So I'm gonna keep in this orientation and install it right underneath this bar here, 'cause we're gonna have some extra square nuts in that channel. So grab that bolt and a washer, push it through the backside, just like that, bring it up. And we're just gonna start by hand tightening it. We want this to be at the point where we can still adjust it. I'm gonna see if I can slide this down. There we go. And the goal with this is to make sure this is still fairly tight and you reach it across, and you wanna make sure it is as centered as possible. So let's do that on the other side now. So right now, I'm just underneath it, and I'm kind of pulling it tight from either side. Once that feels good, I wanna tighten it down. Then I'll grab a tape measure and measure from one side, here to the edge. Do that on the other side. Or you could just eyeball it. So now we can move over to the topper. So I have this out, and then figure out if this is inside or outside. The outside is gonna have the logo on it right here. And what we wanna do is have the inside facing up. So I'm gonna roll this out some, just like that. And I want to grab one of these bars. And what's unique about this one I have in my hand is it's gonna be color-coded on each one of these points. There's gonna be another one that doesn't have those color codes on it. And this is gonna be side-specific. So I wanna make sure that this matches the color code on our bars connected to the topper. We'll connect it, just like that. You just have to press a button there. Just watch out. You might pinch your finger a little bit. And then do that on the other side too. Just like that. You're gonna have some other bars that come with your kit. And I'm gonna look for the color codes on these, like I have on this side. And same thing, make those connections. Same thing with the fourth one. Once we're putting the other side on, you just want to match it up, with these holes being on the same side side. And once this is all lined up, then we can kind of bind it all up, pushing it together so it's a little bit easier to move into the back of our bed. Now, there is a trick. I do like to make this a little bit easier. So when we're moving it up here, you're gonna notice this side here that has this header bar here, I want that to be on my tailgate side. So I'm gonna make sure when I lay this down, this is facing up. Another thing to watch out for is this hole here. This should be closest to your bulkhead side. And what I'll do is cinch this bar into place with this G-hook that's connected to it. Because that's gonna prevent that from, like, wobbling all over the place. Once you do that, I'm just gonna pick it up and we're just gonna roughly put it in the center of our bed here on the bulkhead side. And once this is kind of getting lined up, we will come back through with those holes and line them up with those pivot arms, just like that, on both sides. All right, and then it'll come back through and put this washer on, and then this clip. You are gonna do this on both sides. Now we're gonna connect the back window of this topper to our tonneau cover. This will be a little bit tricky the first time you do it. So what I recommend doing is when you lift this up, this header bar might get in your way. And kinda show you an example, what you might have to do is when you lift up, pick up one side and then move the other side around, just like that. And then I'm gonna pick this up enough, So the back window goes past here, and we have it. And I wanna make sure this is free, it's not getting tangled up. Now, I might take a minute to get this window to a point where you can kind of grab it, and this is gonna be on the inside. And what we're gonna do is attach this to this hook-and-loop fastener right here on the tonneau cover. I'd desert from the center and work my way out. There we go. The biggest thing here is just making sure it's on here, just so it's not pulling from too much to one side. So what we can do from here is lift this a little bit higher. And what we're aiming to do at this point, I recommend grabbing from the very bottom so it doesn't expand on you yet. You're gonna notice we have these cam straps kind of dangling here. We won't go to the side on the far end, push this to our cab, and connect it on both corners. Once you get it connected on both corners, you'll fully expanding this out. Make sure we're not getting caught on anything. And attach it over here too. You notice, I don't have that side quite attached yet. Sometimes I'll connect this point just so it holds up for me so I can make those other connections. And what we're gonna do from here is just kind of pull on this some. We're trying to create extra tension. That's gonna make it easier for us to pull down the sides and make our connection with the hook and loop. And really from this point on, this is just gonna be us kind of fine-tuning our fitment to our truck. So something I do wanna point out, when you are fine-tuning it, I already pulled down my other side to look like this. And it should be about maybe this hard to pull down. If you find yourself really trying to yank on this, just to come to this cam strap and pull on it some. So we will come to here. And make sure we're almost all the way across. Looking pretty good. When I come over to the backside, this is gonna be a zipper back here. This is gonna connect that window to your right at this point. So we'll zip that up, rolls like that. I got that in place. There's gonna be a hook-and-loop fastening right here. Push that down too. Some of it'll go underneath that tonneau cover. And also apply pressure here. Once that's done, we can come over here to the front side, and that cam buckle right now is supplying a lot of tension here. So we want to kind of share the load. So what I'm gonna do is just loosen up that cam buckle by pressing on the buckle itself. A little bit tight to see in here. There we have it. That should make you feel better. And I'm gonna continue that whole process on that side. And what we'll do from here is just lower this down,. undoing those G-hooks that I put on earlier. And the way you make this connection and it's where it reaches this point, you keep turning it and putting it into that slot right over where we put our tonneau cover into place. And this time, you might have to push against it and push down, just like that. This is also gonna have some zippers on it. Make sure you put that into place too. And you can shut it one of two ways. The first way is you just secure it down. Make sure our hook-and-loop fasteners are down too. And this does a good job. But even prevent even more water from getting in here, make sure this guard here is facing up. You close this, and that you have it. And again, I'm Matt. Thanks for watching.