Anyone storing their top on its side?

[harrij4]

I'm looking to regain some garage space by making a storage rack that will use the mounting bolt holes to hold the top sideways. This should keep the distance between the two side-rails fixed (i.e. keep it from folding like a taco), but I'm curious if I need to work about the roof portion skewing relative to the bottom rails. Is anyone else storing their top on its side? Any distortion or flex issues?

[notsolo]

Anything other than on the truck will likely have flex issues. I stored mine on a flat cart and it now has a bow in the side rail.

[truckster]

I store mine bolted on a base (just the 4 corners) that matches the dimensions of the bed.

I would worry that storing it on its side would lead to distortion and/or cracking. The top is pretty heavy, and you'd be putting a lot of weight on one side, loading it in a direction it wasn't designed for.

[harrij4]

Originally Posted by truckster

I store mine bolted on a base (just the 4 corners) that matches the dimensions of the bed.

I would worry that storing it on its side would lead to distortion and/or cracking. The top is pretty heavy, and you'd be putting a lot of weight on one side, loading it in a direction it wasn't designed for.

My hope was that by using spanning members I could spread the load out between the two sides. Then, use the header-rail mounting points and maybe a couple other supports to support the roof section. These things just take up so much space.

Are the single walls prone to cracking and sagging? I've read that the double-walls are, buty single appears to be pretty sturdy.

[truckster]

The single wall tops are pretty sturdy, but they weren't designed to be on their side. They're hard enough to find that I wouldn't take the chance with mine.