Cargo Cover Repair (56K=NO!)

Many of you don’t have one of these to begin with, but for those lucky few that have one it’s most likely in less than perfect condition. The owner I bought my bronco from kept everything; she gave me the cargo cover and a set of blue “Bronco” camping chairs. I have used the cover for the 3 ½ years I have owned the truck and it has never worked right. It didn’t roll itself back up at all and more recently the part that rolls up would not even stay in the holes. It was also falling apart at the end. The following write up is about how to bring the old cover back to its former glory.



This is my cover, and this is about as rolled up as it can get on its own, if you look closely you can see the safety pins holding the end with the handle together



The first thing you have to do is take the end caps off. All you have to do is use a set of channel locks and hold the black rectangle and then turn the end cap with your free hand. You only have to turn it about a ¼ turn and then you can pull it off.



This is a pic of the end cap after it has been turned. Now that the little thing which looks like an arrow is pointing at the middle of the rectangle you can pull the end cap off.


This is what is underneath. If all you need to do is re-tension it so it will roll itself up all you have to do is take both ends off. If you are just retentioning it simply roll the cover up like it should be then firmly hold the rolled up part while you turn one of the ends, you will be able to feel the spring pulling against you when you start to do this. I will get to more about this later.


This is the not-fun part, you have to push the black end down and remove the pin. Much easier said than done. The springs which push the ends into the side of the vehicle are pretty strong and this would have been much easier with 2 people. I found the easiest way to do it is to stand it up and push both ends in at the same time and then tap the pin out with a small hammer. Then you can pull it out with a pair of pliers. The whole time you do this be careful not to break the black plastic ends and to not bed the rod which the pin is in. The rod is fairly easy to bend and it will mess things up pretty bad. Once you have one end off you can then remove the vinyl sheet thing.


This is the end with the 2 black pieces and the spring removed. They all shoot off as soon as you have the pin out so make sure you find all the pieces. You can see here that the rod is kinda rusty, take some sand paper and sand it so it is nice and smooth. One of the black pieces spins on the rod and the one with the pin slides on it, so it is very important they can move freely.


This is the rod once it is removed, the spring on the left is the one that makes the cover roll itself up, it works just like a small version of a garage door spring. In my cover the spring had fallen off the little white thing pictured here. You can see how the white thing got bent over time; luckily there are 3 of them inside the large tube so I switched this one with another one. Only one of them has the spring connected to it so even though this one is a little messed up it will still work fine.


Here is the rod sitting beside the outer tube. The spring is held on to the rod with a small rivet, which luckily was in good shape.



This picture shows how the little white parts sort of act as bearings for the rod, they only fit in one way and you can see the small dimple in the tube which stops them from going all the way back into the tube. These are also what the end cap springs rest on inside the tube.

Because I did this all myself I don’t have a picture of this next step. I put a thin coating of white lithium grease on all of the moving. Then I found a drill bit just slightly larger than the hole for the rod in the black parts. I drilled the hole slightly larger because the rod inside of mine was slightly bent from a previous offence. This allowed the parts to move freely. I then re-assembled the end pieces, which again is much harder than it sounds and you have to be a little creative. Remember to put the vinyl sheet back on before you put the second end on.



Now that most everything is back together you can re-tension the whole thing. This pic doesn’t show it but you have to roll the vinyl sheet up on the tube before you start to tension it. Once you roll it up simply hold on to the tube part and turn the end.

This is another step I don’t have pics for because I only have 2 hands. You have to put the end caps back on while the whole thing is under tension. The way I did this was to again stand the whole thing up. I put a pair of vice grips on one end (every so gently as to not break the black plastic) then I held it with my foot. I then proceeded to put the end cap one and lock it back down with channel locks. Once you have one side on it is much easier because it will hole the tension and you don’t have to. Then all you have to do is put the other end on and you are in business.



Now it rolls up just like it is supposed to. The next phase of the project is to address the ends where the vinyl is coming un-glued, especially visible in the pic on the left side.

So now if you find one of these and it doesnt look so hot grab it anyway cause it can be brought back to life