Video Review & Installation

Hey, guys. Adam here with americantrucks.com, and today we're taking a closer look at and installing the Proven Ground Hard Tri-Fold Tonneau Cover, fitting all 2019 and newer Rangers. You should be checking this out for your Ranger if you're looking to protect your cargo from the weather elements and would-be thieves with a low profile, hard tri-fold cover, and a category filled with a ton of different designs. You should be checking out the hard tri-fold if you're looking to gain access to your bed in sections, which the tri-fold cover accomplishes, but you also want something that's a little bit more durable than a soft vinyl cover. This particular option from Proven Ground here uses aircraft-grade aluminum paneling with a textured matte black finish on top. Each section separates your bed into thirds, and it folds back so simply with just one pull of a pull cord. Some tonneau covers out there on the more entry-level side of the spectrum here make you go from one side to the other unlatching with a clamping system. This one here has a pull cord going straight across the back so you can open your tonneau cover regardless of what side you're on, driver, passenger, or behind the tailgate. You just pull the cord once, it unlocks, and you fold it back.The nice thing about the Proven Ground tri-fold here is that once you fold it all the way back to the bulkhead, you can see there are snaps at the back to secure it open. That way you can drive with the tonneau cover fully open if you're hauling something a little bit larger than the tonneau cover that requires it to be fully open. Another nice thing about this one here that personally makes it one of my favorites in the hard tri-fold category there is the fact that it is so low profile. Some of the other options in the hard tri-fold design stick up a couple of inches off the side bed rails there which make it a sight for sore eyes, it can be a little bit ugly to look at, especially from the side profile of your truck. This here, if you're eye level with the truck, it completely blends in, you may not even know it's there, to begin with. As you get closer up, you can see that it's a really high-quality cover that sits flush with the bed rails so it's not sticking up like a sore thumb. It has weather locking strips all the way around the edges of the tonneau cover, its full perimeter, and it's got a thicker bulkhead seal at the top end to make sure that any moisture that could penetrate doesn't make it past that bulkhead seal.The same thing goes for the top, and there underneath the tonneau cover, you have weatherstrip seals inside of the bed rails. Any moisture that could build up there will drain out through the drainage tubes that get installed toward the bulkhead and dump out inside of the bed and down through your wheel wells. None of the weather elements can make its way through, and if it did, it would drain directly out of the bed without wetting your cargo, which, of course, is awesome for the guys who have things in their bed that they wanna keep safe. The last thing I wanna mention here, on the same token of safety, the hard tri-fold is gonna be great for guys who are worried about things getting broken into. This locks with your tailgate, so as long as your tailgate is shut and locked, nobody can get in there, and, of course, a knife won't penetrate the aluminum railing. Now, some of the other softer covers are made from a vinyl that can easily be ripped open. While they may protect it from the weather elements, thieves can make their way into soft covers, not so much hardcovers.Now, if you're looking for a hard tri-fold cover that has the great quality but keeps the price down a little bit, this one comes in right around 700 bucks. Most hard tri-folds in the category are a little bit more premium at right around 1,000. This one doesn't compromise quality but does bring the price down. At this point, I wanna show you guys how the Proven Ground hard tri-fold tonneau cover operates. With the tonneau cover completely closed, here you can see it's completely locked, you can't open it unless your tailgate drops down. So, first things first, unlock and drop the tailgate. From there, either side of the truck, all you have to do is head underneath and pull this cord. It unlocks just like that. Start holding that back, you have one fold and your second fold, and at this point, you can take these straps and snap them into place so that you can drive with it completely open. Do that on both sides to secure it and then just unsnap and unfold it to shut it. All right, clicks in place. Finally, you can just drop it, and it locks. Shut your tailgate, and you're good to go.If the hard tri-fold isn't your cup of tea, there are other options like the soft tri-fold, soft roll-up, and even hard roll-up options. And if you're looking for something a little bit more premium with more bells and whistles, you might wanna look at a full bed cap or a hard hinge cover or even a retractable option if you want one that rolls up like a garage door. Install, one out of three wrenches on our difficulty meter. It'll take you about an hour from start to finish. You can tackle this by yourself in the driveway at home with very simple hand tools. And if you don't even have hand tools of your own, the tools are included in the kit. You get a wrench along with an Allen key to make sure it gets done properly. I'm gonna walk you through the entire process, but before we do, I wanna show you guys how it works, and then we'll jump into the install. Tools used in the install include an impact gun and a 17-millimeter deep socket. If you don't have them, a 17 wrench is included in the kit along with the appropriate Allen key.First things first, grab the drain tubes included in the kit and the two side bed rails. We're gonna place them on our tailgate here. On one end of each of the side bed rails that will go closest to the bulkhead, there are pre-installed hose fittings. Now, the hose fittings are gonna attach to the drain tubes, so any moisture that builds up there can automatically drain out of that and down through the side of the bed. So, first things first, let's snap these into place.All right, so these are just gonna pop on. You wanna make sure they're seated all the way to the top, which may take some finesse, just like that. Do the same thing to the other one. Next up, we're gonna install our support brackets. Now, you may need to loosen up the Allen key so that it's completely flush with the inside here in order for it to work. You're gonna make sure the pads are facing up, go to the opposite corner from the drain tube that we just installed, hook it onto the bottom, and bring it up to slot into place. There's a little channel here at the top, little channel here at the bottom where it's gonna slide all along, and that's gonna provide some support for the tonneau cover. Do the same thing to the other one.All right, we don't wanna tighten down that bolt just yet. We wanna leave that for once the side bed rails are on, we can position them properly. Now, we're gonna do the same thing with another support bracket that's gonna be toward the rear of the bed rail. Hook that onto the end and slide it just like we did the previous bracket. All right, same thing to the other rail. All right, next up, we're gonna actually install the bed rails. They are side-specific, so make sure you're grabbing the correct side. I'm starting here on the passenger, and it's basically gonna hook on just like that. You wanna push it all the way back toward the bulkhead there so that the drain tube brushed against that and it's flush. From there, we're gonna slide this support bracket all the way back, this support bracket all the way forward. We're gonna install three clamps along the bed rail, one close to the tailgate, one in the middle, and the last one here is gonna be pretty close to the bulkhead. Now, you'll notice that the clamps have a little aluminum plate on the inside. That plate is gonna go in between the bed cap and the metal bed itself. There's a little gap in there, you wanna make sure that goes inside.All right, first things first, I'm gonna install our middle one. All right, so now what we can do is take the clamp with the teeth on the inside. Again, you're gonna need to stick the aluminum block in between the bed cap and the bed rail itself. Hook this front end into that channel, and we're gonna tighten down this bolt by hand which just has a couple of turns just to get it to hold itself in place. And from there, I'm gonna use my 17 deep socket to tighten that down. But we don't wanna just blast it on. You wanna take it easy so that it's not overtightened and strip out. All right, if we need to tighten that down later, we can come back and do so. All right, we're gonna do the same thing toward our tailgate here. You wanna feel on the back end where that can fit into place. Now, before we install the clamp toward our bulkhead, you wanna make sure you're taking this bracket and sliding it in so the clamp is closer to the windshield than the support bracket. You don't want them to be reversed. All right, so we're gonna install this guy as close to the bulkhead as we can.All right, now you can take your drain tube and insert that into the open hole on the side of the bed. We have the option of going to the lower one on the bulkhead, but I find this to be a little bit easier, and it'll drain out the wheel well. So, I'm just gonna insert that and run it all the way through. Repeat that on the other side. Next up, we're gonna install our bulkhead seal. Now, there's a really thick one included in the kit that's gonna go straight across just like that from one side to the other. You're gonna peel off the 3M pre-applied backing, and you're gonna stick it in place. Perfect. Once you have it in the position that you like, you wanna make sure you're putting firm even pressure all around. Next up, we can take the entire tonneau cover as it is right out of the box, fold it up and place it on our bulkhead evenly across both rails. At this point, we wanna unsnap it and unfold it back to the tailgate just to make sure it's even on both sides. Next up, with our tonneau cover unfolded back to our tailgate, you wanna flip up the bulkhead flap and have a look at this weatherstripping.There's a strip that goes all the way across, but underneath it, there's pre-applied 3M tape. You're basically gonna flap this whole thing up, fold it over top of the foam seal on our bulkhead, peel off the 3M tape and stick it down. That way this is completely up, and any moisture that drops onto it can roll straight off the bulkhead instead of going underneath. This can prove to be pretty tricky. The weatherstripping here is really high quality, so it folds down pretty thick, pretty sturdy, so you are gonna have to do some work to get it all the way up, peel off that 3M, and adhere it. All right, so I've got a little bit of that 3M backing peeled off. What I'm gonna do is fold this guy down and apply it. Now, you are gonna have to, you know, patiently run this all across the side. You may even need to have to hop up and sit on the tonneau cover in order to get to the center section. At this point, I wanna show you guys how to adjust the locking mechanism at the tailgate. Now, as you can see, we have our tonneau cover closed and it's locked shut. We pull that cord, and it unlocks.So you can see the locking mechanism here is this big rod that goes right underneath of the locking bracket. The locking bracket, however, can be adjusted anywhere along this, so if it's there, it doesn't lock. So, you need to find exactly where this is gonna lock, where it's gonna strike that pin and go underneath of it. And at that point, once you know exactly where that's gonna be, tighten down the hex screw. Grab the Allen key included in the kit to actually tighten that guy down. Obviously, you only wanna do this when you know your tonneau cover is in the exact position it's gonna be in when it's all said and done. All right, so that's tight. Do the same thing on the other side. Now, at this point, we have to take a look at the open hole pre-drilled into the tonneau cover toward your windshield. Now, this stud along with the rubber gasket is gonna go straight through and attach to the adjustable support bracket that slid across the rail itself. All right, so we're gonna push that guy in.All right, now doesn't have to go all the way in just yet. You can tighten it down from the bottom. You wanna make sure the bracket is near that hole, and it's gonna go straight through the bracket. All right, so here you can head underneath, feel around for that bracket, and adjust it so that that stud comes straight through. Perfect, you can do that on both sides, and now we can tighten it down. All right, from underneath, you wanna put the flat washer and split washer on that stud, followed up with the thumb knob, and you're just gonna hand-tighten this guy all the way down. All right, you wanna go up until it's nice and snug, and the foam padding on that bracket makes contact with the tonneau cover and has a tight snug there. Do the same thing on the other side. For the Proven Ground Hard Tri-Fold Tonneau Cover, fitting all '19 and newer Rangers, get yours right here at americantrucks.com.