Tonneau Cover Install: 2021 Colorado ZR2 Bison Edition, with Light Bar

Well, if you have a truck like ours, and it has a light bar or roll bar of some sort, you find there are not a ton of options for a locking truck bed cover. The roll up, fold up, or otherwise retractable kinds won't fit around the light bar brackets, which hang over the inside of the truck bed edges.

My 2021 Chevrolet ZR2 Bison has a factory light bar:

So, what is one to do if you want to over your cargo? It's nice to be able to lock stuff in the bed when on a trip and stopping along the way, and it is great to have your stuff covered and somewhat protected from the elements.

The solution I found for our 2021 Chevrolet Colorado ZR2 Bison Edition was the RealTruck Truxedo Lo Pro Soft Roll Up Truck Bed Tonneau cover, which was readily available from Amazon and arrived quickly, for just $499.

I figured I'd provide my installation experience, which was very much helped by the online YouTube videos that gave me great info.

The cover arrives with quite a bit of install hardware and relatively decent instructions, although the clamps that hold the side rails onto the truck bed rails too a bit of work to fully get correct.

Remove the Allen bolts which hold on the bracket for the rear part of the light bar.

The whole bracket holder slides down and out from behind the bracket lip.

Loosen but don't remove the Allen bolts holding down the front of the bar.

Cut and place a section of the included weatherstripping behind the bracket.

 

Cut and install another set of weatherstripping along the top edge of the truck bed rail from the bracket to the front rail and to the rear edge at the tailgate. At the front edge, push the strip tightly against the front bed wall to ensure a good water seal.

Cut and intall another strip along the bed rail behind the cab rear window.

Install the included corner seal blocks at the front edges of the bed corners near the rear cab window. 

Reinstall and tighten the Allen bolts on the front and rear light bar brackets.

It's good to have some spring clamps at this point. I used then to clamp the side rails of the tonneau cover to the inside underneath lip of the truck bed rail. This allows you to use both hands to properly place and adjust and tighten the included clamps.

The rear clamps took me a minute to figure out. One part slips down inside the shaft/hole at the rear edge of the truck bed rail and you pop out the side hole plug to allow the included kit bolt to go through and connect to the back of the clamp you inserted down the upper opening. That's a terrible description so I hope the photos help.

This shows the rear clamp (you only see one side of it, the other is hidden down that hole), along with the other three clamps, two of which straddle a few inches on each side of the rear light bar bracket and the other which is about 6-8 inches back from the forward end of the bed rail. 

With both side rails clamped in place, it's time to lay the rolled up cover onto the top of the rails at the forward edge of the bed.

Here are two sliding clamps that you push outward to secure the front rail of the rolling cover to the two side rails. It takes a bit of pressure, since the fit is properly tight. It wouldn't hurt to have someone else leaning on the top of the cover rail to take some pressure off as you slide the clamps sideways. I didn't have that help, so maybe my knuckles are a little worse for the wear now. 

You can then unroll the cover toward the sea of the bed and find the rear slotted anchor into which the rear solid rail will clamp down.You place the hard edge under side rail open secure points and rotate down and toward the back. The tension increases and it ultimately clips down nice and snug. There are adjusting screws if the cover is a bit too tight or loose.

On the left side, there is a release lever. You push it forward and it releases the rear edge so you can roll up the cover. Because this is inside the truck tailgate, your cover remains locked if your tailgate is locked. 

Straighten and push down to lock the hook n' loop fastening material along each side.

And there you have it! A lockable, weatherproof cover without giving up your light bar. I tested it with a heavy watering from a hose and it was watertight, although I'm not sure I'd trust it to be perfect in heavy weather. Looks pretty dang clean as well !

Good luck and happy motoring!

  

DIY Repair: McLaren MP4-12C new Lithium Ion Battery

Even with the best car batteries, I suppose it is inevitable. That day you come out and nothing works and the car won't start. With a McLaren MP4-12C, you can avoid that by keeping the car on a trickle charger, as I have for years when it's not in use.  But even then, eventually the battery kicks off. In my case, it was when the battery hit 13 years old, at around 60,000 miles of use.

Before I was good about trickle-charging, I had had the battery get low a couple times and the car became non-responsive. The problem with that in a 12C is that you can't open the door. And if you can't open the door, you can't open the front trunk latch. There are two ways to solve this dilemma. One is to use the manual key in the hidden keyhole under the door "handle" area (There is no actual handle, but the door hides a keyhole under a panel for emergencies).  The second method, one I have used a couple times, it to take off the front left wheel arch cover (a few small screws) enough to expose the cable that runs from the cockpit to the front latch (that cable sits at about the 2 o'clock position on the wheel arch). You can then pull on the cable rearward with some needle-nose pliers and the front trunk lid will pop free. 

However, in this instance, I didn't need to do either of those, because when I am trickle-charging the car, the front trunk lid/hood stays open a crack. One small win right there. 

Because the car was on the trickle charger, I wondered if I just didn't have it plugged in properly, so after trying a few more time and resetting the charger, its, it was clear the battery was kaput. That sent me to the online forums and to Google search and to all the AI bots to find out what is the best replacement battery for the 12C. Well, it turns out there are lots of options on that one. I won't argue the merits of any particular choice of AGM vs Lithium Ion. I'll just tell you what I chose to do.

I decided to buy and install Antigravity H7/Group-94R Lithium which is a direct replacement for the OEM Battery. I bought mine from Supercar Garage ATL, home of the McMedics. And as I learned form the vendor and from helpful forum posts, you also need to install an "emulator" module between the battery and the old harness in order for the battery to talk to the ECU. And yes, there are cheaper options you may find, but make sure you calculate shipping before you decide in my case, I passed on another good option out of the UK because the shipping charges outweighed the cost savings.

So here's my order and some links: 

https://supercargarageatl.com/products/antigravity-h7-group-94r-lithium-car-battery-1

https://supercargarageatl.com/products/mclaren-battery-module-coming-soon

Not cheap, but a bit better than what the dealership would charge to replace the OEM battery.

OK, enough of that, here's the basic process shown below. You can also find a few Youtube videos on the subject that might be helpful. 

First thing to do its to remove all the lining panels from the front trunk. There is a plastic border/seal that runs around the top perimeter, held on by velcro. After you pull that up, you can see the plastic hold downs and plastic screws. I have no idea why mine seems to include an illogical mash-up of Phillips-head, pup-up push rivets, and Torx-head screws. In any case, I took a photo after I pulled up the trim so I knew which ones to put back in which spot. 

Once you open it up, it looks like this (I once again tried my trickle charger on it). I also confirmed that my battery was original, dated 20 October 2011. From the now-defunct A123 Batteries, Inc.

First step: Pull the small red harness lock to the left and unplug the wiring harness from the left side of the battery, then remove the negative battery terminal from the post. 10MM wrench.

Loosen the strap in the middle using the buckle. This whole thing will be removed from the bottom bolt, so don't worry about whether it's super loose or not.

Now the hard part: Taking off the right side circuit panel from the positive terminal. Hard because you need to move the whole thing out of the way to get to all the hold-down bolts. And the wire harness leading to it is very stiff. Start by popping up the right side of the panel cover, and removing the cover (hinged on left). Then use a 10MM wrench to remove the terminal from the positive post.

The wiring harness is held down by this bolt and clamp in a somewhat tight area. 13MM socket on a short extension worked. Then you can pull the whole contraption off to the right side.

The battery bracket is held down by two 13MM bolts on the left and right, and three 10MM bolts on the front, plus two Torx-head screws.

Once all the brackets are free, it looks like this, time to take it out.

About this time I must have made myself a grilled cheese, because these were the next photos in my series... I made this with my home made cast--iron olive loaf and 4 kinds of cheese plus harissa butter.  Damn, that was good.  Maybe you didn't know that Dave Car Guy is also Dave Grilled Cheese Guy.

OK, back to the buttery.  Ooops, I mean battery (sandwich still on my mind). 

Installation is just the reverse. At first, I thought I had the wrong battery replacement, because it is a few inches less wide. But I confirmed I had the right one, as the vendor explained that the brackets are wide enough to still hold down the narrower battery. They were right.

Look at the pic below and you'll see that I installed the emulator leads on the positive and negative terminals and then plugged the yellow-lead harness into the red/black harness that came off the left of the original battery. That is so the battery can be read by the ECU.

And the confirmation that it is working is that the battery status on the screen interface shows that the battery as received was at 83%. After running for a bit, it was fully charged to 100%.

Anyway, it wasn't too bad. Try it yourself and send me any questions.