The Raven
Active member
This is yet another one of those bookkeeping type posts because there is not a whole lot of information out there on these products and their inter-compatibility. I searched endlessly to find a definitive answer on if I could use these products together and "the Sport Bar 2.0 is designed to work with MOST retractable and rolling tonneau covers" was the extent of anything resembling an answer that I could find. So I had to be the guinea pig...and the result is - it works, mostly.
This can also serve as yet another warning about this Sport Bar in case the many others out there on the net aren't enough to scare you off. The Go Rhino Sport Bar 2.0 is a BEAST to install. Holy crap...the idea is so simple, and after installing winch bumpers, suspensions, and entire interiors I thought I had seen it all and there was no way this could really be that difficult. I was way wrong. If you decide to tackle this thing, give yourself a lot of time - ideally make sure you can park your truck for a couple days while you obtain things you need to "customize" your install (cause you will need to).
On to the main point - Go Rhino advertises this as a Sport Bar that works with "most" retractable and rolling tonneau covers...but that really depends on what your definition of "works" is. It is designed to bolt to your bed rails (meaning you do have to drill holes) instead of clamping over them so there's no interference with clamps in the way. However, there is one big oversight in the design - they left no lateral leeway in the attachment of the bases to the uprights. So the bases sit where they sit and for me it was quite a chore to get their inside edges flush with the inside edges of my bed rails - I bolted one side down dead flush, and had to have a helper force the other side out (it was overhanging the inside by 5mm-ish) with his feet while I bolted it down. Then once I had it bolted down I realized that the top bar was not centered, level, or square with the rest of the truck...so I spent the next three hours loosening and tightening and shimming and wiggling to get it as level and as square as possible. I had to make my own shims in the end because there's just nowhere near enough leeway built into the design. Even with that done I now had the issue where the bar was using up real estate needed for the tonneau rails and seals.
You can see here that the sport bar overlaps the tonneau rails:
The foam underneath the Sport Bar base in this picture is not part of the Sport Bar kit - that's one of the "extras" I needed to add. By default, the bar sits right on the bed rail cap with only a thin rubber gasket in between. I think the intent of the design is to actually clamp the tonneau rail OVER the "C-channel" base on the Sport Bar - the back end of the C-channel base has a cosmetic cover plate that you can remove...the only problem is that the sport bar base bottom plate is 3/16" thick...I have no idea how they expect that to work - even if you can get the rail clamped down that way, without warping it somehow, you'd have a huge gap that the rail seal can't cover and water would pour right in. I have to imagine that there's no way a retractable would work because it would bind up due to the rails not being flat. So I ended up putting the rails down first (of course I had to remove the Sport Bar I already installed and three of the included stainless bolts had already seized to their nuts so that was fun). After the rails were installed I then had to figure out how to re-attach the sport bar and obviously this was an issue because it now sat 1/4" higher due to the rails which only under-lapped the Bar bases by like 1/2". I ended up cutting heavy duty foam into 1/4" thick slices and wrapping a foam seal around the perimeter, then setting the sport bar on top and bolting through the foam. It works...but it's far from what I would consider reasonable to advertise as "working".
So the end result is a perfectly fine working and great looking Sport Bar and Tonneau...but let this be a cautionary tale for those considering these products.
Rolling up the cover, it JUST clears the uprights...I actually have to push down on the roll a little bit to get past, but seeing as i'm not going to be rolling up this cover often, I have no issue with that.
This can also serve as yet another warning about this Sport Bar in case the many others out there on the net aren't enough to scare you off. The Go Rhino Sport Bar 2.0 is a BEAST to install. Holy crap...the idea is so simple, and after installing winch bumpers, suspensions, and entire interiors I thought I had seen it all and there was no way this could really be that difficult. I was way wrong. If you decide to tackle this thing, give yourself a lot of time - ideally make sure you can park your truck for a couple days while you obtain things you need to "customize" your install (cause you will need to).
On to the main point - Go Rhino advertises this as a Sport Bar that works with "most" retractable and rolling tonneau covers...but that really depends on what your definition of "works" is. It is designed to bolt to your bed rails (meaning you do have to drill holes) instead of clamping over them so there's no interference with clamps in the way. However, there is one big oversight in the design - they left no lateral leeway in the attachment of the bases to the uprights. So the bases sit where they sit and for me it was quite a chore to get their inside edges flush with the inside edges of my bed rails - I bolted one side down dead flush, and had to have a helper force the other side out (it was overhanging the inside by 5mm-ish) with his feet while I bolted it down. Then once I had it bolted down I realized that the top bar was not centered, level, or square with the rest of the truck...so I spent the next three hours loosening and tightening and shimming and wiggling to get it as level and as square as possible. I had to make my own shims in the end because there's just nowhere near enough leeway built into the design. Even with that done I now had the issue where the bar was using up real estate needed for the tonneau rails and seals.
You can see here that the sport bar overlaps the tonneau rails:
The foam underneath the Sport Bar base in this picture is not part of the Sport Bar kit - that's one of the "extras" I needed to add. By default, the bar sits right on the bed rail cap with only a thin rubber gasket in between. I think the intent of the design is to actually clamp the tonneau rail OVER the "C-channel" base on the Sport Bar - the back end of the C-channel base has a cosmetic cover plate that you can remove...the only problem is that the sport bar base bottom plate is 3/16" thick...I have no idea how they expect that to work - even if you can get the rail clamped down that way, without warping it somehow, you'd have a huge gap that the rail seal can't cover and water would pour right in. I have to imagine that there's no way a retractable would work because it would bind up due to the rails not being flat. So I ended up putting the rails down first (of course I had to remove the Sport Bar I already installed and three of the included stainless bolts had already seized to their nuts so that was fun). After the rails were installed I then had to figure out how to re-attach the sport bar and obviously this was an issue because it now sat 1/4" higher due to the rails which only under-lapped the Bar bases by like 1/2". I ended up cutting heavy duty foam into 1/4" thick slices and wrapping a foam seal around the perimeter, then setting the sport bar on top and bolting through the foam. It works...but it's far from what I would consider reasonable to advertise as "working".
So the end result is a perfectly fine working and great looking Sport Bar and Tonneau...but let this be a cautionary tale for those considering these products.
Rolling up the cover, it JUST clears the uprights...I actually have to push down on the roll a little bit to get past, but seeing as i'm not going to be rolling up this cover often, I have no issue with that.
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I really like the camera view in the mirror. Need to rethink the whole project now.
