Painted with bedliner--outstanding.  Reminds me of being in college and helping my buddy paint his '55 ford pick-up with a can of white latex house paint and a couple of rollers after consuming most of a 12 pack of budweisers .  . .

Boof, we actually looked hard at the winches at HF.  Ended up being the brother-in-law's birthday and they bought him one for his rhino so we held off (check his out before spending our money lol)  Turns out my husband was fairly impressed with it.  They didnt buy the smallest cheapest one, I think they went with the 3000# one, hubby was wanting the 5-6000# one.  But I also work for a distributor of a big brand (Mile Marker) so I might end up getting one thru work. He also spotted one at Tractor Supply that we want to investigate further.  So I'll let ya know where we end up.

We got that little jewel for $1200!  Looked at a few in the $2-3000 range that were much worse overall, so we snatched this one.  I'm in the process of making a panel with vinyl window and a tonneau cover.  Will post some pics when I get them uploaded. Had to order some fasteners which should be in tomorrow.

I do like the bedliner paint, but we are also considering adding a little camo
. Whatcha think?

*edit -forgot to say it's the 1.3 liter 4 cylinder.  I'm not sure about 3 cylinder models.

Here's my little back panel.  Its not secured because I was just marking where to put the velcro.  The tonneau will fasten right about where the bottom of those side flaps are.  The flaps on the side wrap around the roll bars and will velcro tight.  The flap on top goes all the way across and will either velcro or snap.  Not sure which way I'm going with that yet.  It fits tight between the roll bar and the roof frame anyway.  

And I'm not going for "air-tight" or to totally seal out the weather.  Just something to help keep in the heat on cold days.  

justin_o_guy2 wrote on 01/13/12 at 08:28:48:


   Thanks!  Definitely saving money.  Those little boogers are expensive.  A few good looks at them and I said "I can make that!"

I had a "Montgomery Ward" branded machine made by Brother for over 20 years.  Cheap and I got alot of miles out of it.  About 2 or 3 years ago, I bought a new Singer Athena for about $300.  Its not a high dollar machine, but I've been pleased enough with it.  (My mother sews all the time and has a $5,000 Bernina!... ouch!)  

I do a little sewing myself, mostly to make bags for my camera stuff, out of leather and canvas. I found an older White machine in the garbage, cleaned it up, and made a base for it. It is a very simple machine dating from the '50s I think, but will sew 4 thicknesses of canvas easily.

Piglet, If I was trying to close that off Id make a strip that went where I wanted it & then slap velcro on it,