DIY Tonneau Repairs? Anyone try to do this yet?

[staples]

After taking delivery of my R1T in November, my powered Tonneau just got jammed on Saturday. I have a service appointment to fix and disable it on May 23. This thread gives me hope that I could resolve it on my own, and maybe even get it back to operational if it's not too screwed up. Fortunately, it's just the first slat that got stuck on the way out from opening.

1) Did anyone doing this get it back to actually operational vs just get it to be fully open and get the bed usable, but the tonneau off?

2) @loudog3114 I didn't see a follow up thread on the conversion to manual? Have any photos or videos of what you did and how it works?

3) anybody talk to Rivian about what, if any, impact doing this work will have on the warranty replacement when if they get the redesign done?

4) Has anyone had a Rivian Service tech fix it vs disable it? I was hoping I could have a chat with the Mobile Service rep who comes out to try or at least show me what's up vs fully disable it.

1) Yes. I restored my to working condition. I think when it gets wedged, nothing really breaks, things are just tweaked, so the wedging can be undone.
3) Nope. They probably prefer one less service visit.

Sponsored

 

[moosehead]

Huge thanks to @Lil'O Annie for showing us the way. I wanted to add my few observations and pics after the rather painful DIY teardown. It’s doable but tedious as described above.

My brief conclusion is this is a FUBAR tonneau execution and was recreating the wheel needlessly as my manual retrax units work flawlessly 9 years later on a full size pickup. A motorized tonneau on a small bed was just wasteful, let alone one so needlessly complex, janky, and fragile. It’s like some black cape artist designer drew it on a napkin and my 10-year old son slapped together the engineering. Complete whif. Munro seems needed.

Despite indoor storage, dry lube, and limiting usage, my tonneau finally bit the dust which was a bit of a surprise given it was ok until it wasn’t.

It was bound and fungued pretty good, and the teethed end caps pulled out several slats at big angles, so had to do full dissassembly like OP described. I do have a rubber mallet and am not afraid to use it - no go here, she wasn’t moving.

OP’s larger metal clips bed cap looked better than the other version on my build which upon careful pry tool use damaged the male ends from the bottomside of the plastic rails. The smaller plastic male ends that go into the red plastic and metal clips are tiny - good luck getting them reinserted - it’s like putting an oyster in a slot machine. They are largely disposable and not intended for reuse IMO. I may just used double sided tape here while Rivian gets it act together.

Heads Up: the long plastic piece next to the rear windshield should not be removed from its metal baseplate as it is mounted with clips from the underside. I learned this the hard way after prying up the aft side and had to remount that side with double sided tape for reinstall. I’ve since read other threads that correctly point this out but wanted it to be here in this thread too.

As gratefully noted by OP, the two metal rods and bolts at either end have pinholes on the driver side that stop the rods from spinning so the nuts can be loosened to remove entire piece. Pic below, not the most obvious or easy setup.

As OP noted, if yours jams hard then removing the tonneau rails is required to get the stuck slats out. In my case pushing down the slats at the storage box beneath the rear windshield was not enough pressure release to get the stuck boards out. Removing the tonneau slats requires removing the six round black caps and bolts beneath on the topsides of the truck bed.

Note the end caps on the aft side of the tonneau rails are fragile and mounted with tiny torx bolts hidden beneath adhesive foam. They break easily.

I’m choosing to leave bed open for utility, and taped a solid cap cover over the tonneau half of the button so one can still use the exterior tailgate button. Again, janky but we have no choice.

Last tip, careful cause the multitude of torx bolts, tiny regular bolts, mishmash of clips and what not will fall down into the center of the earth. A long magnet comes in handy.

Sorry for the rant, but this motorized tonneau design all was just an exercise in futility. Posting above for those who just want their pickup truck bed accessible and need to DIY for time or distance or both.

 

[staples]

I believe there is a setting to disable the tonneau button that would negate the need for the cap cover.

Sponsored