reldridg

I went with a fold-a-cover, no flapping was easy to install and is easy to operate. It was not cheap but I compared a bunch of covers and this one seemed to be the best at its price point. I have only had it for a couple of weeks but no major leaks in snow or rain.

I saw 12volt DC, I used my back probe to probe the wires that motomedic pointed out in his photos to confirm the wires. 0vdc then hit the key clicker and would see the jump to 12vdc, I set my meter to log the max and it was jumping just above 12vdc.

Just an addition to my post above, looking back at it if I needed to install this lock again I would have used the positap connectors versus the splice connectors that came with the kit, the splice connectors did chew up the wire quit a bit. Otherwise easy peasy.

Just wanted to thank you for taking a picture of the wires. I installed the tailgate lock tonight and using your photos and description I was able to get to the wires quickly without it I would have been searching for awhile since there are about 10 brown wires with yellow stripes. Works well thanks again for the write up.

Just to add to this thread, I went ahead and installed the Bestop powerboard NX's this weekend. I went with these because I did not want to remove any panels and dig into the wiring. I can pretty much look at interior trim on a car and it will scratch. The install was straight forward. I was worried that the transmitters would show up quite a bit on the b-pillar, however they are pretty well hidden and you would need to look for them in order to see them. Overall the product seems pretty decent the boards are a decent thickness on the extrusion, there was about between a 1/16" and 1/8" inch deflection on mid span of the board when loaded with 360 lbs, which corresponds to about a L/240 to L/360 deflection standard. The drop down brackets are beefy with very little play on the hinge pins, the actuator gearing is all metal, and the electrical connectors fit together tightly and included a rubber seal at the base of each one. I did add some dielectric grease to the fittings just to help keep corrosion at bay. The only issue I had was one of the transmitters had a bad battery so I had to go to radioshack in order to get a new battery and all they had were packs of 3 which was $13. I have not contacted Bestop to see if they can send an extra battery. We will see how they hold up but initial impressions are good.

I had a Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited with the 5.7 Hemi, and it never got good gas mileage, on the open highway on a road trip we would see up to 15 mpg, normal mixed driving it would get around 11 mpg, if I went through a whole tank in the city we would see around 9.5 mpg. I do not put many miles on in a year so I never chased that cat as to why the mileage was so bad, I doubt the other hemi's are like that or else everyone would hear about it. I have been driving jeeps for 23 years, and the taste from this last one steered me well away from Chrysler products I read these forums with some of the issues going on with the new 1500s and a lot of the issues sounds like a good day I had with that jeep. The last straw was I took it in for a safety recall for the electronic transfer case shifting mechanism. Well the safety recall really worked because once I got it back I could no longer shift into 4lo. The dealership and manufacturer said that meant there was already a problem with the circuit board and it would only cost me around $850-$1000 to fix. I felt like I went to the doctor and he punched me in the face and then tried to charge me for fixing a broken nose Be very leery of safety recalls.

I could probably not tell when it kicked in on my hemi motor because it probably never did. The fuel mileage on that engine was amazing I could get almost 10mpg and I drove it like a granny. What was even better was that it had about a 17-18 gallon tank so I could almost get far enough away from the house so that I could not walk back and get a gas can when it ran out of gas.

Same here by last vehicle had MDS (Hemi) and I did not notice it switching either but it did not have any lights or anything to indicate that it was switching between the two separate displacements.