Soooo, almost a year along and many are wondering about how the MFT retrofit project has gone, and most have provided encouragement, and that has been greatly appreciated..
On the other side of the coin others have provided no constructive comments, only negative, snide, and dismissive ones. I guess that's the price you pay for being on a forum such as this. Evidently the naysayers don't grasp the intent of 'Forums'. These are the ones for the whom the following is intended;
Better to remain a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.
Now, all that aside-rant over.
By borrowing a 2020 Rebel from my dealer for a few days, I was able to do a ton of research on how the MFT was engineered, as well as what its impacts would be on the structural integrity of the box. The tailgates are 100% interchangeable, there are just a couple of minor relocations issues for the latch pins that are no big deal, and it only took about an hour to get the wiring figured out, so it is certainly very doable. But, and this is the big one, I wouldn't recommend that anyone try this unless you are quite mechanically inclined, as well as conceptually adept at looking outside the zone!!
Once I had all the mechanicals figured out I had my dealer parts lady do a 'locate' for me, and through both the Canadian and the US parts systems, about 98% of the components required, were readily available, and incredibly almost 3/4 of those were in our regional parts depot in Red Deer, so 90 miles north of Calgary(where I live). Literally overnight service.
Where the difficulty arose was on the remaining 2% of the parts, the exterior panels. They were(are?) colour-matched to the trim code, but there was at least a six(6) month wait on them. Unfortunately at that time, so last spring, Mother MOPAR wasn't offering unpainted panels so that wasn't even an option. In fact, I'm not even sure they are now.
With this in mind I had to put the whole project on hold as I didn't want to have a huge number of bits and pieces sitting in my garage gathering dust waiting on two(2) pieces of tin, very crucial pieces of tin mind you, but tin nonetheless. With that in mind a decision had to be made-forge ahead on a leap of faith that the panels would eventually show up, or go into hold mode. I chose the latter. It just made sense then, and frankly, still does. If I could have had the panels in an expedient time frame, I wouldn't even be writing this little epistle.
As far as the bracing of the whole box was concerned, a point that was raised by many, that's an easy one to deal with. I had actually designed a pair of corner brackets(very similar to but before they had theirs) the ones that rightonebracket.com is now offering. Rather than bent steel mine were to be milled out of T6-6061 billet stock, with the design adjusted slightly to allow for my tonneau cover corners clamps, as well as countersunk fasteners. All in all, the steel ones are far more cost effective, and good for the guys at Right On Bracket for coming up with their design and product. That's what we need-more people like them satisfying a need for a specific product for our hobby.
In the meantime, the pre-introduction information on the '21s was released, and part of that information included initial details on the new technology offerings; digital rear view mirror, Heads Up Display, trailer camera connection, plus a couple of cosmetic items, and not to forget the 10th Anniversary Package.
Armed with that information, as well as waiting to see what offerings the factory might provide at time of formal introduction, I decided to just order a new truck. My '19 Longhorn has just turned ~44,000 Kms(~27,000 miles), and being in flawless condition, the dealer took very good care of me. I've got my VIN, and a tentative ship date, so allowing for the in transit time to Windsor, then hanging around there until the right combination of trucks-dealers-locations is finalized, I hope to see it in the next 3 or so weeks. Fingers crossed on that one.
So, that's the saga. If anyone would like to reach out to me to get some of the more pertinent details on doing the MFT swap, don't hesitate.
And everyone stay safe from the COVID-19.
Later..............
