Bed Liners?

[Bird]

One other consideration is the fact that many of the slide in bedliners, such as the one I currently have, cover the tie downs provided by the truck manufacturer. So you either ad others, which I did on the old F250 I had, or you cut holes in the liner, which I've done in the current one, to provide access to the tie down points.

 

[GaryE]

I stopped by the local Rhino dealer today and after about 30 seconds of discussion he told me to get a "drop in" liner. He agreed, if I needed to slide things in and out of the bed, the spray on Rhino was not the way to go.


Tomorrow I will try to find a local Line-X dealer... see what they have to offer. I will keep you posted.


Again, thanks for all the input!!!!


Gary

 

[RegL]

You can probably get a drop in for free if you look around. Many new trucks come with a drop in and most folks remove them and have the sprayed in installed. The line-x dealer I went to said he had stacks of drop-in liners and couldn't give them away. My brand new one went to the dump. I put it off to the side in case someone needed one.

 

[VA_Joe]

Gary,
I to have had both - the spray-in is by far the best (more durable; maintains access to tie-downs; no paint scuffing on the upper rails from shifting liner; no worry about mulch, dirt, and etc. getting underneath and clogging your drain holes; etc.).

If you do it - I would go over the rails and put a Trac Rack on top of the rails to finish it off (love that thing)

If being able to slide in heavy objects is a must - then throw down a piece of pressure treated plywood or cardboard and slide the object on that. Either should do the trick. If whatever your moving is too heavy for one of those to work then you would likely have problems pushing it in on the slide-in liner (or roll it in on a couple of steel or wood rods).

Anyways - my two cents.

VA_Joe

 

[LBrown59]

There are two styles of spray on bed liners. One is very thin and very hard and you cannot compress it at all with your hand or a tool in your hand. The other is much thicker and softer and if you press hard with a tool, you will see it deflect a little. The thicker syle is about 3 times thicker.

1*Both will prevent items from sliding, but the soft version would probably be even better at preventing sliding.
2*A one piece plastic drop in bed liner will let things slide around more than the spray in types.

1*Neither will work with a load handler.
2*A must if you want to use a load handler.

 

[LBrown59]

I have had Line-X in my pickup for three years. No problems at all with it.

Try iusing a load handler in it~!

 

[LarryRB]

I have never heard of anyone doing it themself with a $50 kit and being happy with the results. Spray in liners are something best done by a pro.
QUOTE]
I did my last one myself with a 100.00 kit and was real happy with it. The only down side to doing this yourself and the cans are well marked as such,, is water... The first 72 hours are critical that the bed does not get a drop of water in the mix. Other than this, the liner did 6 years of perfect service. I carried a cub rding garden tractor, snow plows and who remembers what else, Yes, I got many scratches, however, in the urethane and not the truck bed its self,..

 

[Ken_CT]

I posted earlier in this thread about having Rhino lining and using a Load Handler. When I first had the liner done, the installer had an old drop in liner that would fit my truck that he was going to discard. We cut the bottom of it out to lay in the bed of the truck when using the Load Handler to make it more slippery. It was cut around the wheel wells so it couldn't slide. This worked well, but I later tried using the Load Handler without the drop in "pad", and found it worked fine. I have used the Load Handler on the Rhino liner for full loads (3/4 ton) of both dirt & gravel and have had no trouble.

 

[LBrown59]

I have had two slide in liners in my last two trucks. Next truck will be a spray on.
1*Slide in allows anything in the bed to slide like it was on ice.
2*I've only heard good things about the spray on .

1*Which is exactly what you need when using a load handler.
2*The bad thing about them is a load handler won't work with them.

 

[LBrown59]

Gary, it looks like everyone is recommending the spray on liners as opposed to the slide in, but it seems to me they're overlooking your comment about wanting to "slide" things in. I've had one pickup (F150 Ford) with a sprayed on, pretty thick liner and I liked it, but things did not slide on it which was sometimes an advantage; sometimes a
1*disadvantage. As with most of the other guys, I have a slight preference for the sprayed on liners. However, I've had an F250 Ford with a drop in liner (forgot the brand) and now I have a Ford Ranger pickup with an Allstar drop in liner. I like it just fine, but as the others have said,
2*things really do slide around easily. So I just keep plenty of rope and bungee cords in the little truck.

1*To using a load handler
2*An advantage for using a load handler.