I'm just about 75% through with the body work on my truck, but the inside of the bed is covered in dents. The truck is not going to be a show truck by any means, just a decent driver. I'd rather not lather the whole inner bed up with filler, and buying new bedsides is way outside my budget. Would I be a total hack if I just painted over the dents?
you are going to wish you took them out! its like painting over a dent on a fender! it will look like shit, but it being in the bed it might not matter as much. a quick glance and you wont see it, but if you start really checking out the truck cause of a nice paint job, some people may point it out. if it doesnt bother you then do it!
Spray in a coat of truck bed liner...It will hide the dents much better and will be durable. Sounds like you use the truck so this might be a good option for ya. You can get it on the shelf at Auto Zone in black in rattle cans or by the quart in black..or go to your local auto body supply place and get the good stuff tinted in the color of your choice.
you can get tintable bed linner.............but still pound out as many dints asyou can fill the rest........ a othe stated it will lok like shit and you will wish you did.......... and why do half a job???
Yeah...I hear ya. I plan on installing a new bed panel and tailgate and throwing down black diamond plate or sheet metal for the bed. No fancy wood. This whole issue is why i inquired about tonneau covers a few weeks back. I guess i'm gonna sling some more mud
Why so torn over this? You put the question on the Barn too. Just do what you want, Don't worry about our opinion, ask your wife or your Mom or your Dad or Bother, hell if you get 51% of this crowd to like it, it will be amazing. I can't see it from my house.
Franco"s right dont worry what everyone else thinks. I sold a 48 f-1 a few years back that i had for about 12 years. Was trinng to get it right. became a long project. With my Dodge i just said fuck it made it safe and having a blast driving the shit out of it. If it was going to be a show truck it would still be in the shop.
Well I guess the question I wanted to ask is if it was the norm to ignore the dents or not. The reason I asked the same thing at the Ford barn was because it's a much different environment and I like getting different perspectives sometimes even if it's a rather pedestrian and rhetorical question.
My opinion is that if you are going to paint it, do it right by fixing all of the dents. I would rather see an old truck that needs to be re-done than one that was half-assed and looks really bad.
My opinion for whatever it's worth: If the rest of the truck has been smoothed over and made perfect, and you're painting it all shiney and beautiful, then the dents in the bed will stand out badly is left exposed to view. On the other hand, if the rest of the truck is dented, then the dented bed will match the rest of the truck's aesthetic.
My opinion...fwiw...is that if it's a work truck then the dents will be right back in the bed within a few weeks so why fix them? How many brand new trucks do you see on the road that have tons of dents in the bed? If they are actually being used then they definitely do. The only people who don't have dented beds either A) Have a bedliner or B) Are soccer dads in disguise who don't want to be caught in a Minivan.
I used Raptor on my bed. It is tinted the color of the truck. I used a floor out of an 80s work truck and it had quite a few dents in it. I pounded out the bigger ones, but kinda wish I had spent a bit more time on it. Everyone notices the spray on liner, and nobody has mentioned the dents.
at least coat it with bed liner after pounding the big ones out zolatone is a good coating for hiding roughness as well.... i used to use that before the spryable bed liners came out. quite a bit cheaper, and you wont see the dents as long as you put out some effort to rough them out skull
I spent a fair bit of time getting the fenders back into shape on my 39 Plymouth but the plan for the bed sides was always just blast and paint, it's a 70yr old pick up after all. I was lucky that there were no major dents but even with all the small ones I'm pretty pleased with the result. Shows a bit of the history aswell, mine is definitely gonna be a driver!
Oh Yeah!!! Zolotone! The early drag Coupes, Sedans, and some Roadsters had Zolotone interiors. We used it since '54, sprayed it on with Mom's Kirby vacuum cleaner with the gun attachment. It was cool, and still available. My F1 is not perfect in the bed, (who is, really) so I just might use it.
If it is a Stepside, Just have some sheet metal bent the same angle as the bedside and weld it in. I did this on the '33 Ford that I did. Looks great, and you can do your body work on the outside panel without disturbing the smooth panel on the inside of the bed. I will try to attch Pictures. CJO13
The most acceptable thing would be to make it dent free, anyone who ever looks at it is going to say to themselves, nice truck but look at the bed, or gee was he too lazy to do the bed, I would bet a lot of spectators and on lookers will even say this out loud, so if you are not going to make it smooth like new thats up to you because you have to live with the comments from the peanut gallery. If it was mine it would be smooth, but I wouldn't poop on you for not smoothin it, and I wouldn't comment out loud, 'cause I'm not a spectator. Hope this helped.
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