This is the 98 that I posted about in my introduction. It's got plenty of little spots on it around the bed rails where I took the topper off, and there is still a bunch of residual padding that didn't come off from cleaning with soap and a brush. There's some rust at the bottom of the passenger door, and the bottom of the tailgate is well rusted, but only along the bottom. Before I start to dump money and effort into modding the truck, I want to get the body rust free. I'm scared to take the bed liner off, but maybe it's not too bad since the topper was on it the entire time it was stored.

I've never worked with rust or even done much in the way of painting before (except sidewalks and road signs years ago), so any tips are appreciated. Thanks!

 

i work at a body shop/go to school for collision repair...as far as the bed just sand the spots down to bare metal and spray some good primer over them...as far as the tailgate and doors youre gonna have to cut the rust out and weld in new metal...im actually doing this very thing to a buddys 00 F150...fun fun lol

 

I checked the junkyard for tailgates and doors, but so far I haven't found anything worth salvaging. The dealer quoted me 3100 for the body and paint work. I said no thanks, that's more than the book value.

Can I use a hand sander, or do I need a rotary sander? After the primer am I ok to use over the counter Ford matched paint, or should I fork out the cash for a proper paint job?

Sorry, I got a lot of questions. I don't wanna screw this up too bad with it being my first real project truck AND my daily driver.

 

get a good DA sander and sand with 220 grit and prime the bedrails...Ford themselves dont manufacture paint...they have a contract through somebody like Dupont or PPG...just go to your local auto body store and they should be able too hook you up with what you need

 

Awesome. Thanks.

 

Have you ever painted a car before? Its a bit more difficult than it seems especially if you are painting it with base coat clear coat method. If its your first time you might be better off trying acrylic enamel. Like they said above sand all the rust away and primer then paint. You might want to think about fixing all the rust and then painting it. Next I would suggest going to a junkyard and buying a new tailgate and/or bed. I got one for $600 at a place here in Columbus. I popped it up in my garage undercoated in and got it all ready then put it on theres only 6 bolts that hold them in place. just my .02

 

yea painting isnt as easy as it looks...my first paint job looked like **** lol

 

I've never painted anything more difficult than my name on a sidewalk -- and even that looked like a$$! lol...

Not quite true, but close to it. I painted a fender on an Impala and it came out looking not quite crappy. I think my biggest goal is to keep the rust from spreading while I sock away money to have the truck properly painted. The local salvage yard here did not have a tailgate or door shell that would fit my truck, or that would have been my first choice. I did find some tailgates on eBay for around $100 with shipping, so I'll be getting one of those soon, I hope. Been looking on CL, too, but haven't had any luck there.

 

I tried a couple of different adhesive removers for the bedrails. First I tried 3M adhesive remover and it did a fair job of getting stuff loosened up, but didn't really take anything off.

Then I tried Goof Off and it pretty much disentegrated the old adhesive that was on the bed rails. Very good stuff. I think it did some damage to the paint, but I'm not overly worried about that since I plan to paint the bed at some point. The Goof Off even got rid of the rust "bleed", where the rust had stained the bed.

The three pictures are before doing more than just scrubbing, then after the 3M adhesive remover, then after the Goof Off application. I have nice clean bedrails now, except for the rust spots, which is my next project.