Metal protection question (truck bed liner)

I've not used it personally, but I've read a few reviews and all were good. Your other option would probably be a bed coating that Duplicolor makes, though I haven't seen any reviews on it.

What is wrong with spending $300 to protect a new truck that costs 100X that? Do you also not want to spend the $100 on a set of factory service manuals (or CDs) too? I order the service manuals at the same time I order the truck, and by the time the truck arrives I know every detail of it.

The $400 that I spent was a great investment. The pro coating is much thicker than herculiner. It stands up to any abuse. Pays for itself rapidly if you carry heavy metal objects that are pushed nito your truck with forklifts.

i

back in the day, before double walled truck beds, I built plywood side and floor protectors. Of course, that was a lot of years ago...

My parents, bought their first truck about 15 years ago. It has a bed liner in it. Mom keeps a blanket behind the set, so she can carry loads in the bed and not scratch the bed liner... I double over laughing everytime she pulls the blanket out..... But, there are not scratches in the bed liner!!!!!

i used SEM tintable spray on urethane bed liner. sprayed on with a schutz gun. it's ok, i like it, but i think a slippery liner is better. this one is a kinda rubbery urethane non-slip liner. after using is for a while i came to think a HARD slippery coating would probably be better than a rubbery non-slip coating. (so you can push two pallet loads into the bed, and pull them back out. once i put a pallet in back and there was a nail sticking out of the pallet, it slashed the rubbery liner, i wondered if there was a HARD slippery liner if the nail woulda just skidded across the surface w/o cutting it.) i think it was about $150 for the kit. you can get a pint of color matched paint and mix it in to match the color of your truck, so you don't have to settle for black if you don't want to.

b.w.

On Fri, 14 Mar 2008 03:48:46 GMT, with neither quill nor qualm, "Pete C." quickly quoth:

Thanks, Pete. I'll check it out. Y'think the extra weight of the liner will help me stop more quickly? ;) I love the 4-wheel disc brakes.

60-0 in 159'.

26x. Because I don't feel the product is worth the price. Nor did I feel that $170 for the bed rails was worth it, so I bought a $20 stick of Unistrut, hacked it in half, and put it up with $10 worth of hardware and hangers. The yellow zinc coating blends nicely with my gold bed color.

Had I thought of that, I would have ordered them then, too, but it'll be a long while until I need service on this new beastie.

-- Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear. -- Thomas Jefferson

Yea, probably by .001" :)

Disk are nice, particularly for off road use since they are self cleaning, but properly sized drums work well too.

Unistrut is remarkably handy stuff to have around. I keep some assorted lengths of the deep version on had as well as a small toolbox full of nuts, bolts and brackets.

Yea, but what will you have for reading material while making a deposit at the porcelain bank???

I always buy the factory manual set, too, and check it for gotchas like jacking / towing restrictions, difficult maintenance operations, or special tools which I can usually buy cheap in a discount store.

I bought the factory bed liner for my truck one year later when the dealer was selling them off at half price. It's good general protection but when hauling machinery I replace it with a plywood floor, front bed & window protector made of PT planks and a crane in the rear attached by the bed bolts, with solid tie-down eyes low in all 4 corners.

Jim Wilkins

On Fri, 14 Mar 2008 05:35:20 GMT, with neither quill nor qualm, "William Wixon" quickly quoth:

Thinking more deeply about it, I prefer a slippery bed, too, but not for pallet loads. I have a LoadHandler and would need to buy a $70 slippery bed mat for that if I used it with a rubbery bed liner. Hmmm, the plot thickens...

I was happy with a plastic drop-in before, and probably will be again.

-- Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear. -- Thomas Jefferson

On Thu, 13 Mar 2008 23:22:09 -0500, with neither quill nor qualm, Ignoramus17007 quickly quoth:

SIR! I don't abuse my truck like that!

-- Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear. -- Thomas Jefferson

Doesn't matter whether it's 'slippery' or 'sticky' bed coating, or a molded 'drop in bedliner', if I slide in a pallet of anything heavy into the truck I always put a layer of plywood or chipboard in the bed first. Two layers of plywood if you plan to skid the first pallet to the front of the bed by pushing it with the second pallet.

Then your load has something sacrificial to slide against, as wood pallets ALWAYS potentially have loose nail heads and/or gravel and rocks sticking out on the bottom friction surface. You could even embed abrasives like that in plastic or press-molded pallets.

My utility bed is steel diamond-tread, and I still do that. Don't want to mess up the paint too bad.

-->--

I was happy with a plastic drop-in before, and probably will be again.

yeah, me too, i have a 3/4 inch thick rubber mat (i think it used to be a conveyor belt, came from my previous truck's first owner). you can also get "stall mats" from Agway, Tractor Supply ( whatever)

the rubber is super grippy, it's difficult to push or pull anything on or off it. the protruding nail slashed the bed liner on the wheel well. (since i'd JUST got the truck and just finished the undercoat job (myself) it REALLY pissed me off) i thought if it was a hard coating instead of a soft coating maybe the nail woulda skidded across it rather than slashing all the way though to metal. i really like this rubber mat. i feel it protects the bed not only from scratches it also spreads the load (rocks, boulders) and prevents, at least to some degree, the sheetmetal bed from getting dented as well. it doesn't rot, i've had it in the back of two pick up trucks now. it's easy to take out to clean it and the bed. relatively inexpensive.

b.w.

Roll on a coat of Prussian Blue. That way you'll never put anything in there, so it will stay perfect! You could lend the truck to pesky friends and relatives...they'll never ask again.

Only one problem there, Tom. They'll know it was you who hogtied the trolls and hauled them to the city limits. ;-)

On Sat, 15 Mar 2008 04:10:07 GMT, with neither quill nor qualm, "Tom Gardner" quickly quoth:

Gonna loan me a barrel? Thanks, buddy.

-- Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear. -- Thomas Jefferson

On Fri, 14 Mar 2008 18:34:58 -0700, with neither quill nor qualm, Bruce L. Bergman quickly quoth:

I'll do the OSB thing, too, for those really nasty loads, but most of my hauling will consist of ladders, lumber, and wheeled equipment. A drop-in will continue to work fine for me.

-- Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear. -- Thomas Jefferson

I look at my truck as a... well... truck. I try to keep the cab portion relatively scratch and dent free, but I actually use my truck and I expect the bed section to get a bit beat up. If nothing else, it helps keep the eco-ego-maniacs in their hybrids from thinking the truck is some sort of status symbol toy.

Having a beat up truck guarentees right of way at intesections, and insures that people dont park too closely in parking lots.

Gunner

"Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire. Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us) off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give them self determination under "play nice" rules.

Think of it as having your older brother knock the shit out of you for torturing the cat." Gunner

You could probably get by with a five gallon bucket...

On Sat, 15 Mar 2008 17:23:16 GMT, with neither quill nor qualm, "Tom Gardner" quickly quoth:

I don't know. It just doesn't go very far, does it?

-- Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear. -- Thomas Jefferson