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RetraxPowertrax MX Pro 90481 Installed


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Success!  Yesterday the UPS guy brought 2 boxes to the driveway today. One was heavy as heck, the other, not too much. But one box had rails, and the other box had the Powertrax PRO MX unit in it.  Ordered from Amazon on Tuesday, and it arrived from ND to SC on Friday.

 

Interestingly, I found some stickers inside, stamped with 6/22/2020 on it, like one day before I purchased from Amazon. I'm going to guess this thing got assembled the day before I bought it, then shipped out on Wednesday. Maybe not, I dunno. Could have just been a boxed up date.

 

One thing I noticed right away though was it had NO plastic cling on any of the parts that they tell you to remove AFTER installation. They didn't put it on, so at least I didn't have to take it off. But what this did was allow cardboard dust to get all over it. It's like a matte (more satin) but somewhat textured black powdercoat on it. So the dust clung to it pretty good. Brushed off, but looked like crap right out of the box. It wasn't messed up or scratched though.

 

Install wasn't bad. I started on it last evening, and they say oh, it's only about an hour or so for install. IF you're experienced with installing these things, it may be. I wasn't in a hurry, so I took my time. All in all it took me about a little over 3 hours with beer breaks and double checking things. It took me almost a half hour just fiddling around with routing the wiring from the battery to the bed of the truck. Reconnaissance research to map out potential wiring routing and then deciding to pop loose the firewall insulator retainers and route the wiring BEHIND the insulator so as it crosses the truck in a more hidden way than laying it in the tray as shown in one of the videos I watched. Wasn't bad, but if you're going to route it to hide wires or make it look more like a factory install, it's going to take more time. Period. I like to make things a bit neater. If you just toss wires in anywhere, yeah, just a few minutes. I put an X cut in the upper driver side bed plug and ran the wire through there and snapped the plug back into place.

 

One thing too about the T1 trucks, there is a spacer that goes between the factory bed rail liner and the metal of the truck bed. The factory has a little gap there, and the adjusting nylon screws would just push that plastic in until it hit metal. The spacers have a peel and stick thing, so once you install the rails, you can put the spacers in per instructions.

 

They tell you to take measurements in 3 places after situating the unit and rails in the truck. Front was 58- 5/8" across, and the bedrails expanded out to 58=7/8"  The instructions want plus/minus 1/16" so I simply adjusted both sides inward the specified distance until I got 58- 5/8" in all three measurements.

 

When I finally got it hooked up to power, I rolled it out for its maiden closure, and while I did have to help it the last foot or so, it came out fairly smooth and uneventful. It's not as loud as I was expecting. Nor does it take as much space as I thought it would. If I were guessing, it's not much different than a medium front bed tool box. Maybe a tad less. There's still some room under the unit as well. Not a lot, but decent, considering. It's nice that it has a gasket that seals the front of the rolling drum to the front top rail when it's all the way closed. This will help minimize water intrusion into the drum area. There's two drains on it which are good, but the holes in the bed aren't anywhere near the size needed. I'll probably just use one and form a Y connection to one of the holes and use reducer fittings and some more tygon tubing to go out the hole. I hesitate to drill bigger or extra holes in the bed, but if I have to, I will. If I don't, I won't. 

 

It may be because it's still new, but when I went to open the tailgate with the cover 100% closed, it clicked, but stayed in place. Did the same when remotely attempting the opening of the tailgate. The end of the slats have a gasket that points down that starts to slide over the tailgate top when closed. This provides the main seal on the tailgate. It isn't like the bakflip I had on the old truck as the gasket was pointing toward the back. I'm thinking once the gaskets set, the tailgate will likely come on down by itself when opened. There's a note that says you probably need to help it all the way back for the first 48 hours until the gaskets set. Probably will work itself out. 

 

Seals appear to be top notch. It seems like it will resist water intrusion. Maybe not 100% but I'm thinking it'll be fairly water tight, 99.9%.

 

I would still love to have a button in the cab that was hardwired in to open and close it. I'll deal with it. I think it's going to be worth it anyway. Wife loves it already because I don't think she'd be happy having to deal with a manual version.

 

Another note about the maiden roll out, on the driver side, about in the middle, was a thin cork square about 1.5" x 1.5".  It was cocked and didn't appear to belong there. It was sticky on the back and was just sort of stuck out in the middle of nowhere. I removed it as it wasn't pressed down or anything. I don't know where it came from, but was inside the drum somewhere. Anyone have any ideas what this was or where it originally went?

 

I'll post pics later. Just wanted to throw this out there for anyone wanting to install a Retrax unit on their truck. I'd say do it. It appears, so far anyway, that it's a quality unit.

 

Here's a pretty good video to help show how it's done on the T1. This says it is a ONE MX, but all the Powertrax units mount the same in our trucks. Only difference is rails and slat materials. Also, all 4 clamps were the same size. The video says they're different and one set is marked "cab". Wasn't so in my case. But that wasn't an issue at all.

 

 

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Here's the pics.

 

Closed, completed.

575435365_2020PowertraxInstall1.thumb.JPG.313ad518d76dd0975b0979aec77f24fb.JPG

 

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Rear tailgate top seal. Faces straight down and forms a lip seal on top of the tailgate.

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Tailgate closed. I think if you hit it with a pressure washer here, since the lip faces to the front, you could push water past it. Keep that in mind.

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With fully closed, has a soft gasket on last slat to front header to provide for water intrusion seal-

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And of course, the front bed lip seal. lots of contact area-

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Key fob. Comes with two.

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Open fully. The canister takes up some room, but not terribly bad. The LED light on the unit is fair. Better than nothing, but doesn't do a whole lot even in the dark.

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But the rails do clear the grab bar brackets. If they didn't, they're aluminum and could be trimmed a bit rather easily. Wouldn't take much I imagine.

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Edited by 2020SierraDenali
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And the wiring to the battery. Brown to ground (neg) and red to hot (positive).  There's a 10A blade fuse under the cover that's not shown.

1192052010_2020PowertraxInstall10.thumb.JPG.9f17405262aca675f3a9b52b3ae9588b.JPG

 

And ran the wiring behind the insulator pad on the firewall. A bit neater look than just throwing the wiring around everywhere. You can see the red/brown wiring peeking out on the right a little.

1163386122_2020PowertraxInstall11.thumb.JPG.246d440d42beb03ce3f1bf68977ade1e.JPG

 

And finally over to the driver side next to the brake fluid cap. Runs down on top and back of the inner fender liner and on the outside of the frame strapped to the electric motor wire loom for the running boards.

1118443552_2020PowertraxInstall12.thumb.JPG.875e7cc5813e4538359785ca83bfa662.JPG

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8 minutes ago, HK GUY said:

Nice write-up. I have the Powertraxone XR on my 2017 and linked the remote to one of my Homelink buttons for open and used the other button for close, works perfectly.

Sent from my SM-N975U using Tapatalk
 

That's a great idea, actually. I like the idea of being able to have something in the truck besides the fob. I didn't think that Homelink would be able to do that. I might have to try doing that.

 

Did you just set it up using the fob method? Or was there some little trick you needed to do? Curious.

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Oh, and I should throw this in there...

 

I wasn't sure if GM was still using that stupid frame wax that gets all over you if you barely touch it.....confirmed. They did. Holy crap that stuff sucks. Paint would probably suffice here in South Carolina away from the coast, but I get the idea behind it. It's just messy as crap when you're running wires close to the frame or doing anything else that gets you near frame components.  

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4 minutes ago, HK GUY said:

Just used the fob and held it next to the homelink button, just like linking the garage door remote.

Sent from my SM-N975U using Tapatalk
 

Bonus. Thanks. I'll give it a try. Not really wanting to tote around an extra fob on my key fob for that. I'll still keep a fob in the console for times when the Homelink goes wonky. And they do sometimes. I know it's the Homelink because the other cars don't get affected on the garage door opener.

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I did the remote learn for the Universal remote buttons. #1 for the garage, obviously, but #2 opens the cover, #3 closes the cover from inside the truck. Push the switch it rolls, let go and it stops, just like the remote does. You can bump it or hold it to roll it all the way. Absolutely loving that.

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On 6/28/2020 at 6:56 AM, HK GUY said:

Nice write-up. I have the Powertraxone XR on my 2017 and linked the remote to one of my Homelink buttons for open and used the other button for close, works perfectly.

Sent from my SM-N975U using Tapatalk
 

Borderline Genius! 

Edited by Fuelie
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2 hours ago, Fuelie said:

Is there a way to open the power ones manually if needed incase of a problem? I love my retrax pro and would really like a power one :)

Tom

If there is, I haven't found a way to do that. I did notice that when you press the controller, a green light comes on behind the LED lamp mounted on the driver side of the unit. So the controller must be in there. But until the warranty ends, I'm not taking anything apart to investigate anything.

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