What do you guys do when the Phillips head screws holding that inside the bed side panel in strip and break off?
I have rust in the bed along the bottom of the side panel and I want to get to it to treat it. The 3 screws along the bottom broke off. The one an inch higher came out. Now the 3 over the wheel well are stripped and I am having a heck of a time getting at them.
Drill or grind the head off. Then you can remove the panel and get some vice grips on the leftover stub
Thank You Tortron.
I was going to grind it but drill seems like a better way with maybe a cold chisel and hammer too.
Drilled the ones that didn't come out. Most just went to the bottom of the head and came loose with a bit of the thread shaft showing. the rest broke off with a chisel. Here are pics of the rust with the panels off. The rest looks surprisingly good for how bad this part is. the panels have surface pitting I should be able to reuse them. Does anyone know if these angle pieces are welded or installed with adhesive? Here are pics
driver side.jpg passenger side.jpg
What you're planning to do to the bed surface after you get rid of the rust?
I have a bunch or rust spots on my bed-, from the rubbing from a plastic bedliner. I plan on sanding down the rust but not sure how to treat the bed afterwards. Wondering what type of durable paint to use to cover up the sanded up spots if I don't want to do a whole spray-on bedliner thing.
Any suggestions?
A good urethane epoxy. I use durapox because it's what we paint our America's cup boat hulls with.
I don't have those angle pieces on my NZ tray. Interesting, I was thinking of making some panels to protect the bed sides too. On my tray at least, the bed sides are spot welded under the floor, the section that touches the wheel well is glued with seam sealer.
Give them a wire brush and see if you can find some spot weld divots
MrPaco, I had painted the bed with something that was supposed to be bed liner that wore off. It peeled off where I did not sand down the clear coat. As far as rust what you see on the bed is superficial. I would expect any rust reformer or converter, rustoleum, and regular paint would be enough. If you are going to use it for dirt and gravel you should paint something stronger on even though it will wear off. I have seen some kits in the parts store for around $70+ but I have no idea how good they are.
Edit- I got something called Skyco Ospho that is supposed to convert rust to an oxide that is stable and is meant to be painted over. I have not applied it to the bed as its wet from washing and it is going to rain. I sanded the panels some and brushed them all over. I got it at Ace Hardware. I wasn't paying attention it cost me $19.99 for a quart and gallon is only $26. I'll post again tomorrow after I let them dry for 24 hours.
tortron, I scraped and wire brushed it good and vacuumed out the junk. I have to wash away the dirt I couldn't brush off. I didn't notice any welds but I will look again. If I can't replace it I was going to treat it with a rust converter seal it with paint then rivet on a piece of steel. I could probably use some epoxy. I noticed that the reason it rusts in that area is that there is no seal along the bottom edge and as I type that I realize that means they used spot welds not seam sealer.! I will be sealing that.
Last edited by 85Ram50; 07-01-2019 at 12:23 PM.
Rain did not show and I got ambitious after realizing the difference in amount of work in polishing the turd or tearing them out and putting in new was about the same (turns out its much less to do it right) I took out the rusted brackets. 1lb ball peen hammer and 12 inch 1 inch wide cold chisel.
Rain stayed away so I ended up painting the whole bed with Skyco Ospho. It leaves a white film and it may stain your concrete so... I hope it doesn't rain now
OK I got some 1.25" 16 gauge steel angle iron. 1" would probably due. I have them cut to length. I will try to find some adhesive to attach them tomorrow then I will used the good ones to set the panel and mark for the holes. now pictures of the removed brackets. I made hole on the up front bracket as the screw hole had rusted out but the bottom of the angle was still strong except near the front end.
driverS.jpg PsideF.jpg PsideR.jpg
And with the angle pieces laid in
Dside.jpg pass side.jpg
The Skyco Ospho works OK. I had to repaint some spots that did not turn black.
Edit-
Still a couple spots that are on vertical surfaces are rusty colored. I tried mixing the liquid in petroleum jelly and putting it on. Everything else looks like it has converted.
I plan to seal up with a good DIY bedliner spray the inside behind the panel and paint the bed to seal it good then put a good bedliner on top so I do not have to deal with the new coating wearing off.
Last edited by 85Ram50; 07-03-2019 at 11:30 AM.
Does anyone know whether or not the stiffeners in the bed are necessary?
the bars are tiedown bars, not stiffeners. Ospho is great stuff - I have a hood I had removed off of Geronimo 29 years ago and stripped the paint off of it and treated it with Ospho - it still does not have any rust on it today. I even had it outside for a time.
Pennyman1
The best Dodge that Dodge never made
Living the D-50 lifestyle since 1980
Yea it is working good. The vertical spots not so much but I keep reapplying and it is slowly getting the job done.
I have the same situation, someone painted the bed with something that is peeling off. The original paint is underneath, except in some spots where a bed liner wore it off and some surface rust has settled.Originally Posted by 85Ram50
I did a test in a few pots with a rust remover drill attachment and got it to the bare metal, almost. There is still some small black pock marks here and there, I didn't want to keep grinding further for fear of not being left with any sheet metal... is it safe to primer and then paint over those areas, or do I have to treat it with a rust reformer first, like you did?
I have a loctite product that says that it can only be covered with oil based primer/paints, so I haven't used it yet until I find out if the primer I have is oil or water based.
I would find a primer for rusty metal or get Ospho to convert the rust. Scrape the peeling paint and sand everything lightly so that there is something for whatever you are going to use to grip to. Wash it and make sure it is dry when you are done sanding and prepping before painting.
Hey pennyman1 next time you think of it let me know what brand those bedliners are please.
I have to go and look at the trucks they are in - they are at a friends property.
Pennyman1
The best Dodge that Dodge never made
Living the D-50 lifestyle since 1980
OK cool thanks.
Progress.
I got the new steel in using JB weld. I could not get a good ground to spot weld them due to the bed being multi piece and they are all bonded with adhesive. I ground some spots to bare metal and covered them with the JB.
I went to API and got some sealer adhesive to seal the line along the bottom where the water gets in behind the panels. IDK yet but I may use it on the panels when I put them back in. Tomorrow I'll get the holes drilled and new stainless fasteners for the panels. I figure I will get in and sand it real good by hand and use whatever OTC bed liner seems best, I'm thinking Herculiner but I haven't settled yet. OK Pics
JBweld Dside.jpg JBweld Pside.jpg JB weld PsideFront.jpg Sealer.jpg sealed.jpg Pside wsealer.jpg
I have the area behind the panels rust free and sealed with paint. I ended up getting new hardware for the fasteners. I took one of the good ones in to the fastener store and the guy told me it was 6mm dia 16mm long he didn't give me the thread count.[Edit- he did not have any metric screws or bolts that small.] I ended up getting 38 - 1/4 x 20 x 5/8 hex head bolts with washer and lock washer. I had to get the U nuts at Napa Auto Parts. See picture. If you go this route make sure you check the packages as I could only get 3 and needed a 4th so drove 20 miles because they had it. When I got there the package was identical but it had flat nuts in it not U nuts. ?? Ordered another and got them this morning. I have run sealer around the bottom and side edges of the interior panels.
The Napa part is Balkamp 6651909 which is a Dorman product packaged under the Balkamp label for Napa. I forgot the Dorman part number.
hardware.jpg sealed.jpg
If anyone has any good experiences with DIY bedliner let me know what brand. I don;t think my compressor meant for air nailers is strong enough to do a proper spray job through a paint gun.
Last edited by 85Ram50; 07-10-2019 at 05:32 PM.
I purchased a 10 gallon compressor. I think I will Use Raptor Upol. It might be a bit my body isn't happy about all the work I have done. Also thinking about getting a sand blaster if the prep is too difficult. Does anyone know how well a soda blaster would work? Seems like it wold be safer for lungs and cleanup. It does cost more. HF also has a gun with a 20 oz hopper for $20 You just plug in the air line and pull the trigger.
Blasting requires serious air. I have the Harbor Freight 110lb pressure pot blaster. I've only used it for a few small things so far. It keeps my 15cfm @ 175psi 60 gallon Quincy compressor humming right along. You'll want to rent or buy a larger compressor if blasting any amount of surface area. If you go the sand route, go buy proper abrasive media. Tractor supply has bags of coal slag abrasive media for about 8 bucks. Some people use actual play sand. You can give yourself silicosis doing that.
The 20lb pot I was looking at only needs 6cfm and less than 100psi. I saw a guy on YT use it and it works OK. He didn't read the instructions or watch the HF vid and thinks it was designed poorly to regulate the flow but he figured it out that you have to regulate the air coming in not the flow coming out. He did say that a grommet they want you to have behind the tip caused clogs. his demo was with it out. The HF vid of the gun looks great but maybe that stuff it is removing isn't so hard to remove. I definitely liked how wide the pattern was.
The only thing I need to remove is the soft rustoleum paint and the old black "liner" I painted in 14 years ago.
I have a name brand pressurized pot blaster, and I ran so much black beauty (coal slag) through it, that I had to replace the main valve a couple of times. I found out later that black beauty comes in several sizes - what I was using was for bridge blasting - it cleaned up the rust, but was too aggressive for sheet metal. I now have a place to get the right grit for any kind of blasting. Glass bead is also good for finer removal, and aluminum oxide is for thick heavily rusted metal. Soda blasting is superfine, ad will take a lot of media to clean up heavy rust or thick paint, if it will work at all.
Pennyman1
The best Dodge that Dodge never made
Living the D-50 lifestyle since 1980
OK I haven't tried anything yet. I have it ready to clean up now but it is supposed to rain the next couple days. If it is too much of a pain to get at it with the orbital and sand paper I might go for the pot blaster. They have alum oxide, walnut shells and soda at HF. There is a Tractor Supply in a small town south of me if I got with it I will probably go there to get some media. Coal slag aint much better than coal dust for your lungs. Here she is ready to be cleaned.
bed ready to clean.jpg
I just cleaned up that sealer with a razor blade and sanded it the panels and wheel wells by hand. I don't think I will need a sand blaster. It is going to be a pia but I'm happy not to have to spend that money right now.
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