Man Time.....

The Labor day long weekend helped me get started on my truck. That friday I came to the conclusion that I wasn't getting any younger and the truck wasn't fixing it's self. So after work I decided to find a managable project on the truck and tackle it. I have all the pieces for the front end, and they need to be fit on the truck, but the bed seemed the easiest.

When the truck is all said and done I want the inside of the bed painted. I have several reasons why too. First since I don't have the older styled bed with the wood, so why not clean it up and get the trashy bedliner out. Second I don't want people thinking since I have a truck that I'd love to waste my weekends moving there junk.

So the bedliner is coming out and a lot of body work and paint are going in. I've found a company in Cave creek Az that will soda blast my complete bed for cheap, but they want a arm and a leg to remove the bedliner. So to keep cost down I began peeling out the bedliner material. This is what I started with.



Two days and eight hours later, this is as far as I've been able to get. This material was really stuck onto the bed. My fingers hurt from picking and peeling the material out. I tried grinders, heat guns and even a torch, but my fingers worked the best.


After peeling out the bedliner I was shocked to see another bed liner below it. Whoo, I was so excited!!!!

Along the front of the bed is able to get down to actual paint. So far this truck has had several shades of blue, maroon, grey and yellow on it. Thus the reason its going to all come off. The paint job I'm going to put on needs a good foundation.

After peeling all this way I'm glad to say I only found two small rust spots at the back of the bed floor. All that material must have sealed the metal from rust.

The tailgate

And finally the trash can full or rubberized bedliner material. What a pain that was, but the bed is ready to be unbolted and shipped out to be stripped.