When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
I have a 1973 F-250 with original paint solid body but surface rust on inside of bed. What would be your recommendation as far as preserving it? Bedliner or paint it. Painting it would be hard to match paint as old is faded a bit and just hard to find but bed liner would preserve it and make it user friendly. However that may take away from the value of the truck Possibly?
I am not sure where to go here thanks!
I would have a spray in bed liner professionally applied. It won't hurt the value any and may actually add to it. Plus it will help keep the bed protected. I would remove the surface rust first and repaint it.
If it was a keeper, I'd Line-X it and watch them go over the inside with a wire cup brush in a grinder eliminating paint / rust. Quality job will seal it and protect .... and likely 3/16" - 1/4" thick in bottom.
yea no need to paint if you rino,,you could get it blasted inside bed,,if your going to use the truck as a truck yea rino,,,but if your going to just preserve and and admire paint it,like it came from Ford
Wire wheel the rust as good as you can and scuff the rest of the bed with a Scotchbright pad. Get some Naval Jelly for the rusted areas, Napa has it, follow the directions on the bottle. Spray some Rustoleum epoxy primer over the whole bed. Then apply what ever bed liner you want, I used Herculiner. I did this to my '96 F150 fifteen years ago. Worked like a champ and I did't have to worry about it after that.
If you want to paint it, I have found "autocolorlibrary.com", a mail order paint house, does a good job matching colors.
With either paint or bedliner, prep is the key. I would recommend a really thorough job with a wire wheel to get rust and loose paint off and then epoxy prime. Then paint or bedliner per your preference. On mine, I used black bedliner to provide extra protection for hard work.
Bed liner does separate from the paint. Rust will continue underneath. Wire cup brush grinds contaminants into the paint that is left and the bed liner will not stick very well. Not a good preservation or restoration idea. Blasting or sanding followed by oil wax grease remover followed by epoxy primer and then liner or paint.
I did a DIY spray liner with Raptor U-POL. Granted my bed was in pretty good shape as it was from California. I stripped the bed to metal, brushed on POR-15, 3 coats of 2K epoxy primer, then sprayed the liner.
So far so good, although it has spent most of the time in the garage since I applied it. Also, I'm in California so it probably won't be seeing the extreme conditions some of the trucks on this forum will.
Paint on the inside of the box never really "matches", it's always more shaded, less road debris, light doesn't hit it the same way at the same time, etc. I don't mind liners at all, tough, cut down on road noise, clean up nice between abuses, etc, but I don't have any show vehicles, either, mine are all users. But if you want to stay away from a liner, computer matched paint and a rubber mat would look as perfectly matched as factory, I would think. And if it's all on the floor, more better - heck, epoxy primer and throw a mat in it, nobody would ever know.
.... looks worth it to me. 
