My Experience with Raptor Lining My Bed

I recently Raptor Lined the bed on my 2015 DCLB and thought it was worth sharing my experience.

When I bought my Tacoma earlier this year, the bed wasn't in terrible shape, but it had definitely been heavily used by the PO and was showing some wear and tear. I'm not the kind of person who worries about every little ding and scratch--but I am the kind of person who likes to "start fresh" and to "erase" the wear and tear from the PO, so that I can impart my own wear and tear!

So after a lot of research, reading, and inspiration from seeing the results others had achieved with Raptor Liner (@jeffmort, in particular), I decided to pull the trigger.

I also replaced the bed rail and tailgate caps with KB Voodoo parts at the same time.


Which kit?
The approximate inside surface area of the DCLB bed is ~60 ft^2. I calculated ~54 ft^2 per the overall dimensions of the bed, +5 ft^2 margin for all of the "features" in the bed, such as the wheel well protrusions and bed floor corrugation. So it came to approximately ~120 ft^2 required total for two coats.

According to U-pol, the 6-quart kit should cover ~126 ft^2 (~21 ft^2 per bottle) with 0.018" thickness. Therefore the 6-quart kit should be sufficient for 2 coats for a DCLB.

I found this to be pretty accurate. When all was said and done I was left over with ~1/3 bottle. 5 & 2/3 bottles, per U-Pol, equates to ~119 ft^2.

Kit used (with included gun):

$214 CUSTOM SHOP U-Pol Raptor Black Urethane Spray-On Truck Bed Liner 6 Quart Kit and Custom Coat Spray Gun with Regulator

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B074KPWNZD/


Prep
First, I removed all of the bed rails, bed bolts, D-ring bolts, and bed cubbies.

I then prepped all of the surfaces to be coated by first washing, then sanding with 180-220 grit, then washing again, and then finally de-greasing.

I masked everything off with frog tape, blue painters tape, and plastic sheeting. I installed the stock fasteners into all the threaded inserts in the bed to protect them from overspray. I masked the heads of the bolts to make sure they could be removed easily after application, but that probably wasn't necessary as I replaced all of the bed fasteners with new stainless steel bolts.

Lastly, I used the Raptor Liner Adhesion Promoter:

$21 RAPTOR Adhesion Promoter 1K Aerosol UP5024 12 Oz

https://smile.amazon.com/U-Pol-Raptor-Adhesion-Promoter-Aerosol/dp/B07DGP6T45/


Application
I used the gun included with the kit which seemed to work just fine. I used an inexpensive pancake air compressor regulated to 50-60 psi at the gun.

I followed the recommended application instructions and started with the corners of the bed. Next came the floor of the bed, and then the vertical surfaces last.

I cleaned the gun with acetone-based de-greaser between each bottle.

I waited 90 minutes between coats. I also did one "final" spray at the end of the 2nd coat with the gun much further from the surface to achieve some texture.

I removed all of the masking immediately adjacent to the coated surfaces (and partially unscrewed all the bolts) within 30 minutes of the final coat.


Results
The bed definitely looks much better than before and I am pleased with the results so far. It's only been about a month since application, so time will tell WRT durability. So far, no complaints and I'm definitely glad I did it.

Onto the pictures...


Sanded:


Fully prepped and masked (in my incredibly small garage):


Immediately post-coat:


Masking removed:


Next day:


Several days later (with new bed bolts installed):


KB Voodoo side rail caps installed and bed tie-down rails re-installed (all with new stainless fasteners). I don't have a good "before" picture of the bed, but the tailgate cover shows a good comparison between the condition of "before" and "after":


Bed cubbies reinstalled (also Raptor Lined, with new stainless fasteners as well):


All KB Voodoo caps installed:


And finally, covering up all my hard work with my bed mat:

 

Nice walk-through of the progress and awesome job!
Are you eventually planning to spray the tailgate part? How good or bad was the over-spray in your garage? Are your side cubbies coated with something else?

 

Wow, that really looks good. Come back from time to time and let us know how it's holding up and holding on!

 

Great job!!!

 

Thanks!

I plan on replacing the tailgate cover with something more robust eventually than the stock plastic, so I chose to not coat it for now.

The overspray wasn't too bad. The liner is far thicker than something like spray paint and it tends to go only where you are pointing the gun--at the pressure I was using, with the supplied gun, I'd say the spray cone came out at ~20-30 degree angle. I masked like crazy just in case, but there was only really minor overspray where I purposefully sprayed past the edge of the bed to make sure I got full coverage. I lined the sides of the garage with plastic in the areas that I thought I would have overspray.

The cubbies are coated with the same liner, but I prepped it slightly differently and accidentally coated it a little thicker than I wanted to, and end up with a slightly glossier, less textured appearance.

 

Thanks, will do!

 

Watching this thread, love the look! Wonder how this will fair after a few years!

 

Thanks man. I live in Southern California, so not too much crazy weather or snow except for trips to the mountains in the winter. I definitely plan on posting updates periodically though!

 

Very cool. Came out great.
I’m about to raptor line my US Off-road low profile winch mount. Got two of their aersol cans and etching primer. Hope it comes out half as nice as your bed

 

Looks great!!

 

That turned out a lot better than I was expecting. I really like the KB caps.

 

Nice write up and great work.
Turned out as well as I’d expect.
With some proper prep and taping, you get a great finished product with that liner.
I’ve done several pieces on my truck with Raptor Liner. I’ve used both from the gun/compressor as well as the aerosol can.

Love their product. I’m curious to see how it holds up actually lining a bed. Let us know.

 

Thanks. Yeah, as with most painting/coating projects, prep and masking definitely took the bulk of the time. It was probably 8-10 hours of prep work, and about 30-40 mins of actual spraying. Sanding the bed was the most time consuming/annoying part--all of the ridges and features made it pretty cumbersome.

 

Awesome job, looks great.

 

@hoffengineering any updates on how it’s held up? About to do this project the coming weekend and it’d be nice to know if I’m wasting my time or making a smart move.

 

It's held up pretty well so far. It's been ~1.5 years since I applied it. There are some minor areas where the coating has started lifting and cracking, but they are pretty localized. Given how local the "failing" areas are, I chalk it up to not putting in enough prep in those areas. Most of those areas are also in internal corners or under the heads of fasteners (e.g. the heads of the bed bolts), which makes sense.

Other than the handful of failure points, it's held up really well and has maintained its adhesion to the composite bed well. That being said, I have a bed mat in the bed 24/7 and I haven't hauled anything super hard/abrasive/heavy/etc. (so far just small amounts of lumber/soil/a few cinder blocks and then camping and wheeling gear—often on moderate wheeling trails). So while I don't take extra care to "keep it nice" (I routinely just wantonly throw stuff back there), I also haven't really put it through the ringer in terms of abuse either. It has been exposed to sub-freezing (I think ~10F?) all the way up to 110F-degree ambient temps—haven't really noticed any issues with temperature so far.

Overall, I'm still happy with it. If I were to do it again, I would spend even more time on prep (mostly the sanding part) and use lower grit sandpaper when doing the prep. I initially used 180-220 grit; I would probably use somewhere in the area of 100 grit if I did it again. I do plan on patching the "failed" spots at some point using 80-120 grit to re-prep those areas (and probably an even lower grit on a flapper wheel to prep the still good liner at the boundary of the failed spots).

I'll try to get some pics soon to show the "problem" areas.

 

Okay great to know, thanks for your response. So definitely going to spend a shit ton of time on sanding the bed and focus the adhesion promoter on the problem areas that would tent to have lifting issues. And will stick to 80-100 grit. I also plan on running a bed mat since I have the DECKD drawers in the winter and don’t want any rub through issues, luckily they have the adjustment for the thickness of the mat.