I use to use a hairdryer on my dirtbikes to keep the plastics nice and new so I tried it on the bedrails. I went to china freight and bought a heatgun for $13 (I didn't want to use any chemicals till it was brought back to life) if you just heat it evenly and go slow it will start turning black before your eyes


before

after


before

after


I'll be getting something to protect them in the next few days or I might just leave them as is I dont know yet. It rained yeterday and water was beading up along the rails so I might just leave them alone for now. Anyway, whoever was thinkin about doing this it only takes 1hr of your time to get great resulsts.

 

That looks great and it only took an hour? I will be trying that out as my bedrails need some attention to.

 

yes sir only took 1hr to go around the whole bed. I did the rear bumper plastic too and tonight I'm going to do the front bumper plastics and the wiper cowl. I will probably remove the wiper cowl and do it off the truck.

 

Wow, whats the heat doing? I wonder how long it will last?

 

That came out awesome.Never heard of that trick before.Pretty cool.

 

Please let us know on how long that lasts, I just want to know before I get a heat gun.

 

The length of time of the "restoration" effects depend mostly on your climate/environment. Typically this method lasts about a year, shorter in high UV exposure, longer in less.
I've used a liquid restoration applicant for my fender flares and that usually lasts about a month depending on the weather.

 

Yep, have done that with cloudy plexiglass in the past. Works great.

 

I added some protectant to it last night and it didn't "darken" anymore than the results from the heat gun. I am going to probably pay more attention to them more than the previous owner did so it should last a while. Why wait 79camoford get a heat gun and get to burnin!

 

Not sure if everyone has 'Harbor Freight' stores where they are at but that heat gun is about $15 there and I can attest to it working very well.

 

You can pick up heat guns at pretty much any hardware store for about $10-20 depending on which one you buy. Some have some different heat settings but the cheap ones work just as well as the more expensive.

I use Mothers on my flares but that is because plan to replace them with larger ones soon enough and have no issue with my bed rails so this way works very well for me. Used on a regular basis for a few washes the effect lasts about 2.5-3 months.

 

Just wanted to say I tried this on my 2005 last week. I live in Arizona and the sun is brutal on my poor truck. Made a huge difference in the color of the bed rails. Went from ashey white to a dark grey. Doesn't look brand new but worth the effort. Took about and hour for two side rails and top of tailgate. Not to mention u have a free hand to drink a couple beers during the project.

 

Im going to get one once I get back from work and do my bed rails when this weather out in MT wants to settle down and get nice

 

Heat guns at Harbor Freight Tools only $9.99 and they have other uses too. Handy shop tool. Here is a coupon. http://widgets.harborfreight.com/wsw...9&keycode=0000

 

Thats exactly what I did. Working outside on my ride putting some cold ones down is a good time. Heat gun trick works nice to. Not black as new but better than grey.