Hard Tonneau Cover Recommendations?

[Wayne Kubeck]

Thanks @Wayne Kubeck. Did it come with a bulk head rail, so that it seals behind the cab? The old (or maybe not old) installation instructions show just a soft foam bulkhead seal. Like a Home Depot's door weather seal. I am hoping they have updated their config.

It is a foam seal, it is quite a large square piece so the seal is good.

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[quangdog]

I ordered the Gator FX last week, as they are currently 10% off on their website. With the discount, it was only $746 + tax. Looks to be more or less identical to the MX4 that everyone loves here. It arrived yesterday, and I'm planning to install it this afternoon. I'll come back with pictures and opinions once it's on the truck.

 

[MannyS]

Bak X4 Revolver. Matte black, low profile, and strong.

 

[Aliby]

Thanks for the quick reply @Wayne Kubeck
I have a spray in liner and so am concerned for the ability for it to seal well as I don't think it will stick. TO install it inverted does not sound like a reliable option.

So you don't have the bracket shown in this post below? Apparently it is for the Undercover Flex, so I would have expected it on the Ultra Flex as well.

Here is a picture from the inside and the outside with the rubber sealed held up so you can see the top of the bulkhead, rail, and weather strip. This is on the Undercover Flex. The rail mounts just like @MRAces said his Bakflip MX4 mounted. Undercover and Bakflip are both made by Truck Hero so they probably use a lot of the same parts like Chevy and GMC do on there trucks.

 

[Wayne Kubeck]

Thanks for the quick reply @Wayne Kubeck
I have a spray in liner and so am concerned for the ability for it to seal well as I don't think it will stick. TO install it inverted does not sound like a reliable option.

So you don't have the bracket shown in this post below? Apparently it is for the Undercover Flex, so I would have expected it on the Ultra Flex as well.

No I don't, its a big block of rubber that goes over the front of the bed, it seals well...I only get water in from the tailgate because of the huge gaps but I have a tail gate seal I haven't installed yet.

 

[quangdog]

Just finished installing my Gator FX. I'm reasonably happy with the final install, but the process of installing this thing was kind of a pain in the butt: they include a little bar that mounts to the top of the bed right behind the cab to fill that gap, and it works well... but the mounting hardware for it is.... interesting. I wound up using a mixture of the hardware they provided and other stuff I had on hand. Also, it does not make a perfect seal at the very front of the bed because of the way the bed is constructed - there are gaps in the body panels along the front edge of the bed rails. Not really the cover's fault, and I plan to figure out some way to seal those gaps myself. The fit and function of the cover is really nice though, and I love the way it looks on the truck:

 

[LightingBlue]

Just finished installing my Gator FX. I'm reasonably happy with the final install, but the process of installing this thing was kind of a pain in the butt: they include a little bar that mounts to the top of the bed right behind the cab to fill that gap, and it works well... but the mounting hardware for it is.... interesting. I wound up using a mixture of the hardware they provided and other stuff I had on hand. Also, it does not make a perfect seal at the very front of the bed because of the way the bed is constructed - there are gaps in the body panels along the front edge of the bed rails. Not really the cover's fault, and I plan to figure out some way to seal those gaps myself. The fit and function of the cover is really nice though, and I love the way it looks on the truck:

That........ Looks really janky. Alone or in conjunction with the "rod" used to keep the unit in the vertical position.
Obviously it won't be getting that much air pressure underneath it at speed, but this, along with your assessment of the hardware provided, would lead me away from this product.

With only a 5' bed there are fewer options for you to maintain any sort of reasonable bed length with a tonneau though. Which is part of why we went with the SCAB as even the all-aluminum roll-up solution we went with that is bulky (yet easy to remove) sill affords a 5' bed plus solid location for bars over the tonneau for larger items.

 

[Clump]

I added a tailgate seal that I had from a previous tonneau purchase. We had some torrential wind driven rain and my bed stayed completely dry. Good! At least with the truck not moving.

There are areas at the front corners where I can definitely see some light coming through. I haven't found an install video for an Extang Xceed on a Ranger. It turns out that Truck Hero is the parent company of a lot of different bed cover brands, including Truxedo, Bak, Extang, A.R.E. https://truck-hero.com/tonneau-covers. They all use the same bulkhead rail for Ranger installation. So I looked at a few different installs on Youtube.

Here's a screen cap of Stage 3's Bak install that shows the gap:

My Extang Xceed came with corner brackets. A lot of the Truck Hero covers come with the same brackets, some, like the Bak, don't or at least it's not shown in the Stage 3 video.

Real Truck has an install video of the Truxedo X15. They show adding "block seals" at the front corners before the brackets go in.

The truck they installed in has a drop in bed liner which seems to fill in part of the bulkhead gap.

My Extang did not come with these, nor is there any mention of it in the 3 separate sets of instructions included. So I set out to find something similar to cover the opening. I was not able to find anything locally, at least searching Lowes and Home Depot web sites. There's a lot of potential solutions on Amazon, but the current shipping situation has it arriving in May or June. I found 1 reasonable candidate that can be delivered in a few days for $11.95 - https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B07FMWGJ6J/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_image_o00_s00?
ie=UTF8&psc=1

When it comes I'll update my install and report back.

 

[quangdog]

There are areas at the front corners where I can definitely see some light coming through.

I have this exact issue with my Gator FX. My kit came with a couple of small neoprene rectangles like you show in your screen caps, but they don't really look like they are supposed to go there, and there was zero mention of them at all anywhere in any of the 3 separate sets of various installation instructions this thing came with. I reached out to Gator to ask about those gaps and how to seal them properly, and they say they are shipping me missing parts.... though the customer service rep has been a bit vague. I'll update when I hear more from them or parts arrive.

 

[Clump]

My tool box liner came from Amazon today.

I had to more or less completely remove and re-install the tonneau to do this. It might have been possible to leave the rails mounted, but the front clamps had to come off to get the corner brackets off. Taking the rails off gave more room. It also was way quicker than the 1st time!

I only took pictures of 1 side.

Here's the hole at the bulkhead. It really seems like it should have come with something to address this. The cab kind of protects it, but the touchless car wash blew a bunch of water in here.

I used 5"x5" pieces of toolbox liner. I was concerned about it sticking to the bed liner, but it stuck on very well.

And with the corner bracket back in place.

Once I got things back together I can't see any light coming in. We'll see how it holds up. I'm thinking something like Dynamat might hold up better. I'll look for something to stick on the outside.

 

[KJRR]

I tried a piece of the Extang MaxSeal in those corners. with my Extang Solid Fold 2.0 I jammed it in there and got it to stick and no daylight any longer. I do still have water coming in on one side though. Need to get back in there to investigate where its coming from. Waiting for warmer weather when I can spend time taking off the cover and rails and seal it up right. I do like this idea, keep us updated on how it works out.

 

[Clump]

I was looking for something to put on the outside and discovered gorilla clear duct tape. Will give that a try.

We had rain overnight and not a drop came in.

 

[Clump]

I hand washed my truck today and no water got in. I didn't got out of my way to spray the bulkhead area, but I didn't avoid it either.

After the wash I added the clear gorilla tape to the outside. It's a difficult place to work, between the cab and bed, but I got some in there. Added a few strips on each side.

Somewhere Rube Goldberg is smiling.

 

[Clump]

We have CRAZY amounts of pollen right now. My black truck was turning green, then got just enough rain to make a real mess.

I went back to the touchless car wash last night. Got just a little bit of water at the front corners and tailgate, nothing like the deluge I got the first time. At this point I'm satisfied. Need to see how it does at highway speed in heavy rain, but so far, so good!

 

[quangdog]

I have this exact issue with my Gator FX. My kit came with a couple of small neoprene rectangles like you show in your screen caps, but they don't really look like they are supposed to go there, and there was zero mention of them at all anywhere in any of the 3 separate sets of various installation instructions this thing came with. I reached out to Gator to ask about those gaps and how to seal them properly, and they say they are shipping me missing parts.... though the customer service rep has been a bit vague. I'll update when I hear more from them or parts arrive.

Quick follow-up: Gator FX folks sent me new clips to hold the support rods for when the cover is folded up against the back window... but did not address how I'm supposed to seal up the front corners. I think I'll try something similar to what @Clump did above.

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