Video Transcript for Fas-Top Pro Soft, Roll-Up Tonneau Cover DIY Install - 2023 Ford F-150

I'm Matt with etrailer. Today, we're gonna be talking about the Fas-Top Pro Tonneau Cover on our 2023 Ford F-150. Now, this can be a great option if you're looking for something that's gonna be adaptable over time, it's gonna look good, and it's just really easy to work with. So, let's check it out. Now, this is gonna be a soft, roll-up style and there's a lot of benefits to this. One, they're very lightweight and they're gonna still prevent any water, ice, snow, from really settling in your bed.

The only downside is if someone really wants in here, they can come over here, cut this right open, grab what they want. But on the flip side, this versus a hard tonneau cover, there's a benefit to this. And if I unlatch these two sides and I roll this up, you're gonna notice this takes up a lot less space compared to a hard tonneau cover. A lot of those hard tonneau covers are either gonna take up 1/3 of your bed or they're gonna give you full bed access, but they're gonna block your back window. This, we pretty much get almost full bed access without blocking anything back here.

But let's talk about that space a little bit more and what this is gonna take up in your bed. So, we are gonna have a bar that goes across here and this is gonna stick out about 3 1/2 inches. You can adjust that tonneau cover a little bit, but that's still majority of our bed and that's great especially if you have a short bed like we have today. Now, for the total distance underneath here, if you have rolled this out, I can roll it out just a little bit to get a better idea of what we're dealing with. We're gonna have around 21 inches of space, so that's gonna be good for most things we have back here.

Now, if you want a little bit more space, what's nice about this, like I said earlier, it's gonna be adaptable. So, later on down the road, you can even add a truck topper to this. It's really easy to install and it'll be the same height as your cab. So, if you have anything a little bit taller than 21 inches, it's gonna be able to work with that. And you can even put a ladder rack with that as well.

But really, what makes this kit super unique is gonna be the rails themselves. So, the way they're gonna install is they're gonna clamp on here. And this is probably one of my favorite clamp-on installations because instead of some other ones where you have a couple settings you can adjust, this is just gonna have one bolt that goes into place and it does a really good job, because a majority of our rail is just relying on our bed rails. So, it doesn't take any time to put this on. You don't have to make any modifications to your bed. And right in front of here, we're gonna have the latch. This is what I used earlier that take it off. And with this latching mechanism, you can actually adjust these two bolts on it to slide it forward or back some to tighten and loosen your tonneau cover it it ever does adjust. And on the backside of it, we are gonna have this hook and loop and this does a really good job at keeping this into place. And if this ever does get damaged or worn out over time, you can actually get this replaced. And then, when we do roll this out completely, you'll notice we do have these bars that go across and those beams or bars are gonna give us more tension throughout this. 'Cause that's important 'cause once we latch it down at the very back of it, we hear this click into place and this is gonna help any type of water or snow that does pool up here run off to the sides, so this doesn't stretch as much over time. Then, we can just come by to the sides and use those hook and loop fasteners to hold this in place. So overall, I think this is gonna be a solid choice for our F-150 today, and that's gonna be because it is affordable, it does look really good on here, and it's really easy to work with and adapt with you over time. Now, if you do decide to go with this, let us know how it's working for you in either a comment or review. Now, when it comes to the installation, it's actually pretty quick and easy to do. The first time can be a little bit confusing, but we have some tips and tricks to help you along the way. So, let's jump to it. So, to start off with, we can put on our rails. I already did it 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 is on the tailgate side. And the way this should sit on here is kind of just resting 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, we're gonna start grabbing our clamps. And before we get those clamps in place, you're gonna notice we have some square nuts in this channel right here. So, we wanna put those into the correct spots. So, if you look at your instructions, there's gonna be some locations for your clamps to go. Clamp one is gonna be close to the bulkhead, clamp two in the middle, clamp three 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 our rail to where this needs to be, and we're just gonna adjust this so 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. We'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 number two and one. 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 three and two, and we're gonna fully tighten this down. Clamp one, we are still gonna leave loose for right now and we're gonna do this whole process on the other side. 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're gonna walk it over here and we're gonna slot it. We have this opening and there 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 are gonna come with your kit and we're gonna get underneath there and tighten them down. Now, if you're kind of struggling getting this to 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, 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 one and then snug this one down too. 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. It 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 clicking) And if it unlatches on both sides and 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. But with that done, that pretty much does it for the installation. And again, I'm Matt, and thanks for watching.