[Rich69shortfleet]

A little progress. The 3/16" sheet of neoprene I bought showed up. I cut a disc using the Putco pads as a pattern and did a test fit. The neoprene appears to be the perfect thickness. It is just a touch taller than the tonneau cover rails which is perfect as the rubber will compress slightly when the end posts are bolted down. Assuming I can trim the discs of neoprene to the sizes and shapes I need to make things fit right this should really work well. Doing a rough cut with utility scissors wasn't too tough. I can clean up the edges and make other contouring shaping on my bench grinder without much effort.

I also did further test fitting of the end posts. As they come from Putco the mounting system is made of rubber blocks that go into the stake pockets and then are crushed by plates under them pulled up tight by bolts in the end posts. When they crush they expand and wedge the whole contraption in the stake pocket holes. However, given how the interior of the stake pockets are built and how they differ between the front and rear pockets I plan to install the posts in a unique way. At the front I will install them with the expanding rubber blocks as Putco designed them. At the rear, however, the interior of the pockets are larger and I doubt the rubber blocks would actually expand enough to lock the post in place so I will instead just use only the steel nutplates that are used to crush the block. I found if I turn them 90 degrees they are wide enough to clamp directly to the edges of the underside of the stake pocket hole. This should make them a very solid mount to the truck.

This will all make more sense when I post up photos of the actual end post mounting. My next task will be to finish making the rubber pads and then mounting the end posts so I can exactly measure the length I need on the rail tubes so I can cut them to the proper length. It is supposed to be a little warmer here this weekend so I hope to make some progress on the pads at least this weekend.