Hey guys, John here with realtruck.com. Today we're going to show you how to install
the BAKFlip MX4 Tonneau Cover on this 2012 Ford F-150. We've got everything out of the box and you
can see here that it comes complete with everything you need to install this on your truck. It comes with your side rails, of course the
tonneau cover itself, also your rods for holding this open, all your clamps, your hardware
for attaching it, your buckle ends and your instructions. So let's get this onto the truck. Alright, so the first step of the process
of installing our cover is to first put the bulkhead seal on and the way we're going to
do that is to make sure the bulkhead is clean and dry and then use like an alcohol prep
pad or something like that on it to make sure that you get any residue that might still
be on there so this'll stick well and then just peel it back and then just line it up
right against your bed rail cap on the edge of your bulkhead and just follow it along. Now, as you can see here I didn't peel it
all off. It's a good idea not to do that because what'll
happen is then this thing will start sticking to everything and it'll create a real hassle
for you to put this on. So just take a little bit of time like so,
and then when you get to the end you're going to have some left over. That's okay. Just go ahead and cut whatever extra you have
off and that's it. We'll be ready to start putting the cover
on. We've got our bulkhead seal on already. Let's install our side rails and the first
thing you want to do is put the tailgate up and the reason why you want to do that is
for spacing, to make sure you have this correct, and that's not going to be slamming into the
tailgate whenever you close the tailgate. Also one other thing to keep in mind when
you're putting this on is this big metal piece with a slot in it. You want to make sure that that is towards
the cab and facing into the bed of the truck and that'll let you know you have the rail
on the right side. So we'll go ahead and set this up here, make
sure we've got room at the back. Everything looks really good right there,
so we can start attaching our clamps. The way we're going to do that is to make
sure that when you install these that the bolt head faces inward and they're not just
facing outwards, so that way you can adjust them. The middle one here, you're going to want
to put it as close to the center as you possibly can and it's going to go right here, and what
we're going to do is we're just going to snug that down a little bit until we get the other
ones on, just to hold it up here. We'll get the front one up here. It's important when you put these on to keep
them straight so that way the teeth can actually bite into the side of the rail on the side
here in order to tighten up properly and hold this down well. Now what you may have to do when you do this
is just push down on your rail here a little bit and that'll help the seal get in place,
it'll help put this rail right where it's supposed to go. So we're going to tighten this one up, then
we're going to move up here to the end by the tailgate and we're going to attach this
one and we're going to put this one as close to the tailgate as we possibly can. Then hold down on that as well. If you need to, you could get somebody to
help you with that a little bit. We'll get this one tightened up and then we'll
tighten up our center one. And after looking at this it's not really
spaced in the center, so we're going to move it down a little bit and get it more in the
center of the rail rather than over the wheel well. You can double check this just to make sure
that it's down flush on the seal and it is, so we can tighten this one up. Now it's important when you get done with
this and you have this attached to take a look at your rail and make sure that your
rail's horizontal. Make sure this plate up here is horizontal. A good way to look at that is your bulk head
and this one is totally even, so we know that it's installed properly. If it's tilted a little bit you may have to
move your clamp up or down and that'll help adjust it so it sits in right. So that's how easy it is to put the rail on. I'm going to jump over and do the one on the
other side. It attaches the same way and then I'll show
you what to do next. The next thing we're going to do is put our
prop rods on. It's very easy to do. You can see one end, it just has this cylindrical
shaped end on it. The other one has this end that has like a
hole in it there and that's going to right on here and it just pushes right on there. So we have out tonneau and what we want to
do with it is set it up here onto the rails with the short flap facing towards the cab,
and then we're going to simply roll that down on top of there and attach our hardware that
actually holds this to the rails. So the next thing before we get our cover
attached is to attach our buckle ends and the way we're going to do that is we have
these studs that are threaded. Those are going to go up from the bottom side
beneath here and then our buckle is going to go on here like so and then we have Phillips
head screws that we're going to put into there. Something to keep in mind here when you guys
are doing this is, is do not use a screw gun on this because if you do you could damage
the buckle and make it so that it's not usable. So just use a screw driver and hand tighten
them just enough to keep them from coming off. The next thing we're going to do then is we're
going to attach these bumpers that came with it and what these are for is so that when
you open this up and it goes up against the back of the cab, it doesn't damage anything
or break your window or anything like that. So we're going to peel this backing off and
then we're going to put this one right across the end on this side and then we're going
to put one in the center and one on the other side. Then I'll show you what we're going to do
next. Now we're going to put our stud in that holds
this to the rail and just put the rubber washer on over top this like so, drop it down through
the hole and through the slot in the rail and then we're going to attach the rest of
our hardware from the underneath side. What we're going to do is we have another
rubber washer, a steel washer and a lock washer and we're going to put those on there just
in that order and then we're going to take our thumb screw and we're going to start our
thumb screw up on there. Okay, once we have that started then we're
just going to tighten that up enough just so that it doesn't fall off of there, and
we're going to double check and make sure that our alignment is correct on our cover
before we tighten this up. So I'm going to put the one on the other side
just like this. So the next step is to attach our drain hoses
to the stem on the end of our side rail, the drain stem and we're going to run them down
and through the body plugs. Now some vehicles may have body plugs up higher,
that's a lot nicer to deal with, but what we have to do with these is you can do one
of two things. You can either completely remove that or you
can drill 7/8 inch hole through it and just route the tube into it. On this one, we want to try and keep as much
dirt out of this truck as we can, so we want to just drill a hole in there and that's what
I'm going to do here. So what we're going to do then is we're going
to attach the one on the other side the same way we did this one and then we'll have this
all ready to go. So our tubes are attached, we've got our bump
stops on so that the back of our cab's protected. The only thing left to do then is to put our
prop rods on and the proper way to do that is you just unhook it from its spot where
it sits. You just put it up on here, you slide this
piece down and then you tighten this up and what that will do, is that will allow you
to drive with this cover open so that it doesn't blow down and create some issues going down
the road. So there we go. That's how that works, we're all set. We're just going to close this up one more
time just to double check everything and make sure everything is working properly. Now, something to keep in mind when you do
close this up is that you may see the seal may have some wrinkles and such in it. There's a couple of options for you, one you
could just not worry about it or you could, and it'll work its way out eventually in the
sun or you can take a hairdryer to it and just heat it a little bit to soften it and
it'll bring the wrinkles out. So there we go. All right. Everything seems to be working good. Make sure our tailgate closes and it does. All right guys, there you go. Everything works like it's supposed to, fits
nicely, looks great on the truck. That's how quick and easy it is to install
this BAKFlip MX4 tonneau cover onto your truck. So remember until next time, happy motoring.