Hey guys, anyone know how to remove bed liner? I picked up a pair of rubicon enhanced rock rails the other day from some guy off Craigslist for nearly nothing. However, the knucklehead decided to coat them in bedliner and it looks like garbage. I'm planning on getting them powder coated, but am not sure if bed liner spray can be removed with the usual sand blasting process performed at powder coating shops. I've emailed a few shops, but nobody has gotten back to me yet. Anyone able to advise? Thanks in advance.

 

Honestly your best bed would be to re-coat them in bed liner and then spray a satin/semi gloss black paint over it. I don't think you're gonna get any of it off. Atleast you could make it looked better!

 

You can remove it with a heat gun, and a scraper ( putty knife) Heat until softened, then scrape off. A little trial and error will show the correct amount of heat to use.
Or install them, and let the rocks do the hard work !

 

I would NEVER pay for blasting and powder coating on a set of bars I bought to beat and drag against rocks. Go buy a couple cans of spray bomb bed liner and touch up as needed. They are not pretty parts, they are functional parts. If used as rock rails, you will be spray bombing them after every outing. Shove cardboard between the body and the rock rail and spray away.

.......Or, are they used to look cool while traversing the mall parking lot?

 

@Four Low, that's a great idea! I'm going to give that a try! I'll let you know how that works out, thanks for the tip.

 

@Larry0071, I agree to an extent, but I also believe in having some sort of aesthetic to the jeep, as it is a daily driver which sees some trail use on the weekends, not a dedicated rock crawling trail rig. Secondly, the bed liner was done extremely poorly with two types of liner and not sealed well, resulting in rust developing beneath the coating all over the place. Even if the bed liner was something I wanted, the current coating would still have to go and the rust blasted off before re-coating the metal to prolong the life of the rails' structural integrity.

 

I would just hit those spots and others you don't like with a wire brush or some steel wool and spray it again.

 

Those pictures... you call that rust and a bad coating? I see a gouged area and a rubbed clean weld with the lightest hint of surface rust... hardly in need of cleaning or blasting. Rust can not magically continue to grow once you hit that with some bed liner.

If that bothers you, by God!... do not go offroad! Do not ever go someplace that you may need rock rails! By the time you hit that rock rail, your diffs, axle housing, control arm brackets and tie rod will look like they were beat with sledge hammers. Now I know for sure... you have rock rails only for the esthetics.

Hint: Rust can only grow with these three things as a minimum.
1) A susceptible material. You have this.
2) Oxygen (Removed when properly spray bombed)
3) Moisture (Blocked when properly spray bombed)

You can add more to accelerate the process, such as a corrosion accelerant such as an acidic product.

You can have the most rusty POS junk ever seen, and if you knock off all loose scale (that entraps moisture and oxygen) and coat with a properly sealed paint or other coating.... you break the process. Unless we re-write our basic understanding of the chemical properties and processes of corrosion to fit an agenda (think of how Liberals do similar), the truth remains.

 

Whoa now. I've got to come to the defense of Americaneric for a moment. He came here seeking advice. There is absolutely not a thing in the world wrong with keeping your rig looking as nice as you can. This also doesn't mean you are a mall crawler. Every time I go out I come back and spend an afternoon attacking rust, scratches, fluids, air filter etc. then I have my rig washed. I like it to look good all week while I drive it.

Just because someone wants their rig to look good doesn't mean they don't use it to get out there. Nothing wrong with worrying about appearance especially when someone gets a new part. You want it to look good.

I'm proud of my rig and the things we have done together have been awesome!



Here is a short video I made encouraging people to get out there more.

https://youtu.be/HoLXvzZyd_8

Bottom line Americaneric is that likely you will end up touching up these parts down the road anyway. So might as well make them look the best you can and hit that rust now and not stress too much. Or wait for a shop to respond and decide if it's worth it to you to spend the money on fixing them.

 

If you don't like the way the rails were maintained, then having them blasted and properly coated is not a bad option, as long as you are willing to maintain them yourself. If the bed liner was done poorly, there's no amount of polish that will make that turd look acceptable.

There are several camps of off roaders around here. There are those that are concerned with performance over aesthetics, and those that try to find a balance. There are others, of course. I try to keep some kind of a balance. If the bed liner looks like garbage, I'm going to blast it off, and put on a good zinc rich primer before coating or painting it again. The zinc will help (not completely prevent) rusting.

Whichever route you take, keep in mid that your battle with rust will be ongoing. But there is nothing wrong with wanting your rig to look as good as it performs.