So i just hopped up into my bed for the first time in a long time, and noticed it was a bit soft, so i crawled underneath and saw bedliner where there should be steel. What are my options here? Removed bed liner, cut out rotten steel, and patch with sheet metal? Remove bed and have a flatbed fabricated? Truck is an '07 ranger FX4

 

Just my opinion, replace the bed, or replace or add a plate to the existing floor !

If you can weld replacing the floor might not be a bad deal but it will take work.

 

For a long term solution, you are definitely going to need to either replace the bed completely or cut out all the rust and weld in a patch, then paint it. In the meantime as a temporary solution, you could cut out a sheet of plywood or even OSB to the shape of the floor of your bed and then just lay that on top of your bed liner on the floor of the bed. This will protect your plastic liner from getting damaged from lack of support and it will distribute the weight of whatever is in the bed evenly enough so you don't have to worry about anything. While that is certainly not a permanent fix, it should be a decent bandaid solution. If it is going to be more than a week or two before you fix the hole, you might want to break off all the rusted out pieces, get down to the metal, and then throw Rustoleum or something similar onto it to keep it from rusting further.

 

Ive decided to just remove the bed and get a flat bed/stake body fabricated. Steel frame, steel headache rack, steel rub rails/stake pockets, wood deck, new rear bumper/tail lights.

The more i crawled under the truck and looked at it, the worse it got. Frame cross members starting to disintegrate, welds starting to pop, etc......

This is my first pick up truck, and when i first bought it i was hell bent on removing the plastic bed liner, because even i knew that they are notorious for trapping water under them, but the guy at the shop that installed my tonneau cover was all "oh, its a factory liner? They put weep holes in those" so i left it in.........a year and a half later and my bed is falling apart.

 

I. Sure you have thought of this, but with the bed off it’s a great time to give some love to your Frame. Some good products out their to encapsulate rust if it has some.

 

The frame itself is still in ok shape (I live in new england, the salt we use on our roads is not nice to vehicles) its got some rust, but the leaf spring brackets arent tearing out and im not sticking my finger through the frame. I could probably hit the frame with a wire wheel to knock off the heavy rust and then hit it with a rust inhibitor/frame black/ rubberized undercoating.

I still owe about $10k on this truck, roughly 2.5 years of payments.....once i get it paid off i'll probably try to sell it for a few grand and use that money as a down payment on a newer fx4 (not brand new, but a used one thats only a couple years old)