Dustproofing and cooling of canopies on F250

G'day Alan & Barb,

On front of our canopy, we have a sliding window (designed that way for access to a cab that also has a sliding window). We leave that window open a little no to help equalise pressure and although we do still get a bit of dust coming into the canopy, it has been much reduced since doing that. Others I have seen have a vent fitted to the roof of the canopy that pressurises the interior space to minimise dust. I haven't been able to get a good seal around the tailgate.

Cheers

Pete

Hi all,
I have nothing better to do than sit in front of this computer and answer questions that need to be answered. Its great to feel needed. Many years of fitting canopies so what I do is as follows.A vent is needed to draw hot air out of canopy and create a vacuum but/// you then have to stop bull dust from being sucked in so I would put an aluminium strip about 50mm wide vertical where tailgate meets body sealed on body with silastic etc.A strip of double sided tape on tailgate side of alloy so when tailgate closes hits tape and seals.Problem solved there BUT what about horizontal where tailgate joins body of ute at bottom.This is where problem starts. Have never been fully content with solution but layers of canopy tape single sided of course to fill in gap helps. The only problem then is where bottom of door has gap between frame of door and tailgate meet. MANUFACTURE a silastic seal where rubber finishes on door to mould a seal to match the tailgate when door closes.This may not be completely dust proof but will go a long way to ease the problem. Thats it for what its worth. I wish I could just hop into the F250 and Bushtracker and GO.GO GO. See you all at Copetown.

Sorry forgot to say leave the front sliding front window open a little to equalise pressure.
Phil.

We tried to dust proof the tub section of our F250 but found the tail gate the hardest. The area between the tail gate and the canopy was sealed with rubber cut and stuck into place to fill the gaps. I used tape around the tail gate which sort of worked but not fully. My next step was to fit an air flap in the roof of the canopy the same as a lot of on road caravans have fitted. We found that this keeps most of the dust out.

As for keeping the rear section cool, we haven't tried to do anything about that.