Ah, if you're only driving a few miles and it's just on back roads then I wouldn't be concerned either. I just assumed you'd be driving further distances on the freeway for some reason.
I don't want to rain on your parade but personally I'd be concerned about all of that upward lift taking a toll on the rear piece of the MIC top. Maybe it's because I don't have a lot of faith in the way the MIC tops were built, but I just feel like that's a lot of force being applied to...
Also, not sure if you're able to but it might help if you park on an incline as well. I had a small leak on the rear hard top side windows and got around it by just parking on an incline so the water doesn't pool up to begin with
I know this isn't the most helpful but I think you need to find where the water is coming from in the first place if you can. Is it coming from the top down to the tailgate seals? Is it coming in from the sides of your soft/hard top? Etc
Once you get that down I think it'd be a lot easier to...
There's a little bit of play in the lever and then you have to push/pull harder for it to start going up/down. Might've seemed like it wasn't working if you weren't pushing/pulling hard enough
Pass. You'd only need it if you mess with your cameras by replacing your front windshield or something else along those lines
Edit: Flip's post says otherwise, but I also agree with him that it's probably overkill unless you made a lot of suspension changes
I let it warm up for a minute or two if I can but, if I can't, I just keep the RPMs as low as possible. I don't think it's necessary to wait until it's fully warmed up IMO
I thought they always called it MIC - carbonized grey, but maybe I'm wrong. I remember wanting to my Bronco in carbonized grey paint because of that so it would match
Installed the Mabett OEM style roof rack. Was easy to install, looks great, and didn't add as much wind noise as I expected it to (note that I also did the wind noise reduction steps shown here a while back)
I may eventually wrap the crossbars with paracord to cut down on the wind noise a bit...
I'd try loosening all the bolts to the brackets and bars and pushing it down when you go to retighten it. If that doesn't work, I'd put another piece of thin rubber under it to prevent it from flapping around/vibrating