I am thinking of attempting to use bed liner on my whole truck, like painting it with it, in a sense. how many gallons would it take? 1989 ford f-150 reg cab long bed. thanks

 

Please, do NOT bed line your truck

 

I second Diesel_Brad.

 

I would agree with the don't do it route. We bought a truck used, and it had that precise treatment done. it is interesting, but it causes issues as well as makes it REALLY hard to go back to looking anything like original.


We like it because we knew we were getting a beater. It has *character* as a beater. But if I had been given the choice of a similar truck for the same price, we likely would have taken the one without the bedliner treatment everywhere.

And, with all the rock chips and sun damage etc you'd think it would have held up a bit better. It didn't. AND the one place it REALLY needed more liner? The bed of course.

 

And to answer your question as best I can, the previous owner said he had taken the truck apart to paint all the body panels with the more premium bed liner spray from Walmart - the one with a more gritty texture in it. He specifically meant the individual spray cans, not a sprayer & bulk volume of liner.

He said it was ~20 cans, but based on the touch up work where I started in the bed, it would need a lot more than 20 to do the whole truck. I don't think he was lying - just remembering wrong. Those cans are ~$12 each. Not sure about any of the bulk volume stuff.

 

2 gallons of roll on bed liner should be more then enough.

On a side note have you thought about industrial epoxy paint. It is tough as nails, and really doesn't get scratched up. Yet remains easily removed with a wire wheel.

 

Just use good quality exterior house paint.

 

That's still a nice truck.

 

@Azryael
Sorry I missed the compliment months ago. Thx! Working hard to build the truck into something my son can really get use out of.

 

All good!

If you're ever down this way, let me know.