Well, Welfare357 was correct. The entire assembly needed to be lowered. Which I did and now the rear seal comes into contact with the tail gate. But calling it a seal is a little generous. At best, water will now get past the seal and dribble down the inside of the tailgate then drain out without getting anything in the bed wet. And that's not to mention the gap on either side of the seal that Retrax doesn't even try to seal. (Then there's the huge ~4" long x 1" wide gap at each outboard edge of the tailgate that come right from FCA, no extra charge.)
So here's where things stand with my electric Retrax:
- My mods sealed the sides of the Retrax and eliminated the interference between the Retrax side seals the Rambox. So far so good.
- The rear Retrax seal will keep out some of the water but only as far as it extends. There is about a 1.5" gap on either side of the rear seal that has no seal at all and water should pour in there pretty impressively unless attended to. I have a plan for that.
- The front Retrax seal - I don't know about that one yet but will soon. It looks like there is some hope it will seal.
- The factory gaps...I have a plan for those, as well, so we'll see
Regarding the two issues with the Retrax cover that I fixed already...water intrusion past the side seals and interference between the side seals and Rambox lids...Retrax just isn't interested in putting out a better product. The supervisor I was talking to at Retrax said I should call Corporate with my ideas. I'm not going to screw around with that. If they aren't interested any more than that in putting out a bed cover that doesn't leak and doesn't interfere with Rambox lids, the heck with them. They must like dealing with unhappy customers.
Meanwhile, if anyone knows of a good seal to put around the tailgate to keep out dust, please pass it along. Thanks.