Do it yourself bed liner - tips
 

Alright, first off, I am NOT doing it to my ranger.

On our E350, the bumper is painted with I believe emron paint, which goes EXTREMELY hard. Its like an industrial paint. When we painted it, we forgot to put glass bead on it. Well now we got a major problem. If you get so much as a snow flake/drop of water between ur foot and the bumper, your going down and it HURTS!

My initial plan was to sandblast the bumper again and repaint it. But due to financial reasons, and also time (I dont want to tie the truck up for weeks) I have decided to forgo this route, and use the do it yourself bedliner.

Now, I am not going to do the whole bumper, just do like a 3in wide strip along the edge.... Ill make it look 'professioanl' My question is tho, because the paint is so hard, a scruff pad isnt going to do much... So, should I use sand paper? I know the bedliner needs a scoured surface so the bedliner has something to 'interlock' with which is why they want you to scuff the crap out of the paint, but in this situation I dunno. Once I put it on, I dont see how ill be able to get it off if a mess it up, since sandblasting it at that point would be a waste of time, so its important I do it right the first time.

Also, I was thinking about doing the floor as well. But in strips, like 3in wide bars, 4ft long, 8-12inches apart, on the floor. Not do the whole floor, just 'traction strips'

The floor should be repainted, should I paint the floor first then do the strips? Or do the strips, and then paint around them?

What about just using skate board grip tape on it? it is self stick to any surface and gives more than enough grip for your applications and can be put on in a few minutes instead of a whole day of prep and application and dry time and more application.

Try Aircraft Remover maybe?

paint thinner will take it off wet and so will paint stripper-i just did one the other day at work and i messed up a couple spots...the customer wasnt happy so i had to fix it, and stripper did the dry stuff, but it took a long time to get it off and it will also take off any paint if u get the good stuff

tape is out of the question. Tape doesnt have the bond that the actual stuff has. The glue lets go, and then u gotta clean it, and re-do it. It also doesnt look 'professional.

I have already started the prep work. Actually, its all ready to go. I turned the furnace on in the shop, first time in 3 months, and got the stove going, trying to get it up to around 70F in there so I can do this since its all taped off.

When i am done, it will look custom, and professional. I will post pictures.

Like dad always said, if your gonna do it, do it right, cause when you half ass it, your just going to spend 2x as much time on it than if you did it right the first time.

You're right about not half assing it, so its good you're taking your time....but the no slip tape would look professional, and will be alot more skid resistant than bedliner material

+1

I think the no slip tape would look alot more professional. Herculier isn't that slip reistant when it gets wet or snowy.

I'm pretty sure if you looked around you could find a grip tape with an industrial/strong glue. It would be 6000x easier than bed liner, and give you the grip you are looking for. Plus, even if it comes off in a few years, take 15 minutes and put a new strip on.

ya we had that.. dad used a strip of it under the door so It wouldnt rust. The problem is, the bumper is diamond plate. and the tape doesnt like to bend around all the diamond. Besides, I have already prepped the bumper and the floor for this. Everything is sanded and ready to go. As soon as I am done with my coffee, Ima go out there and do this.

Try anti slip stair treads
 

you can buy these at lowe,s or home depot there made for commercial use...
and you can cut them down to size or shape you need...then use an epoxy base cement to glue them to the bumper...they have kind of sand mix texture and there water proof...
just an idea......

check your local harware store, they should also sell those tiny glass beads to mix in with whatever you are putting on the bumper, that would give it some more grip

Well so far i have 2 coats on everything. I did a test run on a lil piece of scrap steel, and set it on the stove to make it dry faster. the adhesion seems to be fine, but the texture of the liner is pretty sad. It has some aggregate in it, but its very very fine. I added some black beauty to it, which is like 2x the coarseness as pool sand. and so far im pretty happy with the results. Ill have pics up later.