drop in bedliner issues

I'm not a fan of the drop ins. Preferably I'd go with a good spray in, but those run heavy cash. I did some research and went for the Hurculiner (there is a thread on do it yourself bed liners). It went awesome for my use, and I had an old rubber bed mat around from my 98' tacoma, so I even use that too. Works great so far.

DC

 

Reviving an old thread here; my Taco had an OEM drop-in; I've had previous experience with these trapping dirt and leaves and causing rust in my F-150, so pulling the damn thing out was one of the first things I did. Needless to say, my instincts were right - lots of scratching in the bed, but also on the side rails - which is really the only part that irks me. It is a truck, after all, but it's so clean that it's kind of a bummer to have big scratches on the bed rails. Oh well. The truck came from AZ, and there were lots of desert quartz pebbles and a ton of sand clogging the drains. Definitely glad I checked it out. Now, for my question. What, if anything, should i do to protect the spots that are worn through to metal? If the truck will rust, I'm sure it will happen from the inside out, but even still, I'd rather not have ugly brown surface rust all over. Should I throw a heavy coat of wax over it and call it a day? There's a decent chance I'll be moving somewhere less hostile to vehicles (Colorado), but until then I'd like to do what I can to keep this thing clean.

Also, in addition to the drains at the front of the bed, there are two rubber plugs towards the front of the bed. These had a lot of sand/silt stuck in them. Better to just leave them out, or in?

 

bed liners fit loose, nothing you can do about it, because of this they scratch and eventually wear through the paint along the edges, nothing you can do about it, they also let water get under them and "if" the drains don't get clogged up its not a problem but if drains clog up and water gets trapped your bed will start rusting, nothing you can do about it, that's the nature of drop in bed liners weather they go over or under the rails.

if you haven't put it in yet then you can do something to avoid all that and spend $400 to go get a bed liner sprayed in it, there is no better protection that makes your truck look the best and last longer.

I suggest you drill a 1/2" hole in each front corner of the bed for better drainage first, then sand and prime top and bottom of these holes before going get the bed liner sprayed in. the bed liner will fill in the small drain slots at the front of the bed so you need these new drain holes to let water out.

my personal recommendation is get linex liner, its done better and thicker then the rhino liner do theirs

 

I would leave those rubber plugs out (most likely someone added there own extra drain holes or something because AFAIK Toyota didnt have those rubber plugs, at least my 04 didn't, and then get a liner sprayed in it

 

Hmm. Ok. I'm gonna do a little more research into spray-in liners. If you look at theWizzer's pics, his double cab has the plugs in the same spot as mine. They're definitely factory, the bed actually has indentations stamped around each plug, and the plugs have Toyota part numbers. I'm sorta reluctant to do a spray-in liner, but I did hit up Line-X for a quote. I'd still like to address the scratches on the top of the bed rail. In the meantime, can someone recommend a good sealer/wax to provide a little extra protection?

 

are you talking about the circular plugs in thewizzers pictures? the only drain holes my truck has are all the way in the front against the front wall of the bed so I'm not sure what those plugs could be for.

As far as the spots id probably just clean it all up and paint over it with a touchup or something thats close to your color, since its in the bed imo it would hardly be noticeably different. then just use some sort of rubbing compound and then wax. I don't think you should be too concerned with the ridges rusting out much since they are inside the bed and roadsalt is unlikely to get in there (which I'm assuming is your main concern). Looks like mostly surface rust.

However there are 2 spots that are notorious (as far as I know) for rusting out pretty bad, right next to the wheel wells. Ive got a writeup about fixing one side, so Id definitely watch that spot and keep the underside and inside of the wheel wells clean. Heres the short writeup I did: https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/luxs-01-build.431341/#post-12469633

 

linex over the rails