Bestop EZ Fold Folding Tonneau Cover

Video Transcript for Bestop EZ Fold Folding Tonneau Cover Installation - 2021 Ford F-150

How's it going It's Ethan here at etrailer. Right now we're going to be taking a look at and showing you how to install the Bestop EZ Fold folding tonneau cover on our 2021 Ford F150. This is going to be a great entry level way to keep the items of your truck bed protected whether that be from the elements, in our case we do have a locking tailgate, so once we close that up it offers us a little bit of security against theft or the items inside your bed. That being said, it is a soft tonneau cover so if somebody's really determined they still will be able to get into this but it's gonna take them a lot more effort. Also, it can offer us a little bit more fuel economy on longer drives. So let's take a closer look.

The cover is going to be made of a textured vinyl so it's got this nice black finish. It's not super reflective, so when puddles and things like that store on top of the cover it shouldn't be providing too much of a glare from you while you're driving. Also on the inside you'll see maybe a little closer once we do the install portion but we do have these aluminum struts that go throughout to keep the tension on top so that we're not sagging down when we do collect rainwater and it just provides a little bit more support throughout as well as reinforced corners. Again, just providing more support to the cover overall. On the front of the cover here by the bulkhead we do have a weather strip underneath as well as on the sides of the rails which is gonna help seal that cover to the top of the rails and keep any sort of water or liquid out from inside your bed.

If we want to, we can actually drive with the cover folded up and we do have two-thirds access to our bed so show you how to do that. Starting with these clamps here, just release them and pull down right here and we'll slide these out of the way. Do the same thing over here on this clamp to the side, pull down and slide it along that track and now fold it up and we'll slide these back into the folded position. And again, we do get two thirds access so we'll get to this point here and I will secure everything down using these two buckles. And then if we're driving, we definitely want to make sure we tighten these up to get that nice and secure.

Same thing over here. And now like I mentioned, we do have access to two thirds of our bed. From here I'm just gonna fold it right back down so we see how quick and easy that process is. So the excess strap does store here in these buttons so if we want to, we can loosen that up just like that. And then we'll undo these buckles again.

And now I'll fold our cover back down. We'll replace the clamps which again you'll get a closer look at during the install portion and then we'll get that tailgate closed up again as well. We talked about that install a few times now and it is really straightforward, but we did run into kind of an issue with our front clamps which you'll see in just a second. So if you do need a little bit of help getting this cover on and installed we'll walk you through that process right now. First thing we need to do is get the cover up and on the bulkhead so I'm just starting with it in this position. All we need to do is lift up and where this long weather strip is, we're going to align with the bulkhead, so we'll move it over there. In your case, you would pull off this adhesive backing and our case this is just for demonstration, so we're not gonna do that. That would be your first step, but we're just essentially going to align that weather strip I just pointed out with the bulkhead. And then we're gonna try to center things up on our rails as best as we can. So right about there is pretty good on both sides. The next step is going to be to release our clamp in the downward position and get it to the point where we have this notch here. We want that to get under our rails. So here's where we ran into a little bit of an issue in our case, these should just be able to glide up and down this channel right here, but ours for whatever reason is just a little bit more stuck so we're gonna need to put some sort of padding on this plastic piece here and nudge it along with the hammer until we get it where we need it to be. That right there should pretty good. There we go. And now we're up and under the rails. After we get our driver's side clamp figured out we also had to get our passenger side clamp, same process. We did have to nudge that one along the track with the hammer just a little bit but we have those both in place. So now we're going to undo these retaining buckles here on the top by the bulkhead and we're gonna fold the cover down. So do that first and you would also be, again, undoing these adhesive strips. But we for this video are not. And now we'll get a good idea of if we're straight or not or if we need to make any adjustments. And then we'll get the next set of clamps installed. Now we'll move on to these rear clamps. So again, our first step is just gonna be to fold these down, to activate them. And luckily for us on the back channel, these do slide which is a really nice thing. So now all we have to do is get them in place and we can pull down on this and then tighten them up until we get to the point where that's gonna be behind our rails. So right about there is probably good, maybe one one or two more rotations, and then we'll again pull up on this lever to secure that clamp in place. And then we'll repeat this process on the passenger side again. Before you fully tighten down all of your clamps you might wanna do another pass just to make sure everything is centered where you want it to be make those adjustments if it's not. But in our case, we do have all four of our clamps tightened down so all it's left to do is close up our tailgate and that's installed and we're ready to go. So overall, I do have a few final thoughts about this tonneau cover. I like the fact that it's super quick and easy to install. Barring, maybe you run into an issue like we have with our front clamps here, still didn't take too long and there aren't very many pieces and parts that I have to keep track of and install. That being said, though, with this design we do only fully get two thirds truck bed access. So if that's gonna be a problem for you and you still want an entry level cover you can look at some of these soft rolling covers. You will get full bed access in that case but those are kind of a pain to line up with those hook and loop straps along the side. Also, you can upgrade to a hard cover which is gonna give you the most security you want but it's also gonna be a permanent canister here in the back toward the bulkhead inside your bed. So you won't have full bed access in that case either but if you're worried about security that's gonna be the option for you. This is gonna be sort of an in between option quick and easy to install, easy to fold up and we can drive with it in that position. So it's gonna protect the things that we need to protect inside our bed and it's going to work for a long period of time. This again was just a quick look at the Bestop EZ Fold folding tonneau cover, how it fits and how it installs on our 2021 Ford F150.