Due to the clear coat dying on one of my trucks bed rails, I am considering going with something like bed caps to make it look nice again. I am interested to hear what others have to say about the brands that are available for stainless steel bed caps for our trucks. I'm looking at the smooth polished stainless ones not really interested in the aluminum diamond plate ones for the bed rails and the tailgate and would like to also maybe even get a bulkhead one. What options are there and which ones fit the best? This is for a short bed.

 

For my part, I'd repaint the truck before I put those caps on it. Just from personal experience, basically all of that sort of stuff, like bed caps, fender flares, and the like are nothing but moisture collectors, that cause rot. But I'm in a rather wet part of the country.

 

how did these do rust underneath?

 

Maybe Westin does as I use their rail caps on my trio.

 

I have the black plastic ones on my truck. They have been there 18 years with no truck damage. I highly recommend them.

 

I'm inclined to agree with this and generally do not like most truck accessories etc. Had that happen on a previous truck where the bed rail started to get rusty. The dead clear coat is just ugly and looks like mildew, but that reason is why I have left it looking the way it does for the last 2 years. Might have to just wet sand it down and try to re-clear it. This was what I was first thinking about doing.

 

I went with those because it looked good on a black truck and I was tired of the diamond plate that caused rust. They didn't work out very well. Wouldn't stay installed in the TX heat. Both the double sided tape and different adhesives did not hold them on. Also one blew off on the freeway after multiple attempts to keep it stuck in place. They are also really flimsy. They were only on the truck about 6 weeks. Would not recommend and consider them to be junk. I actually ended up using a DIY bedliner type of paint on those rails.

 

Hmmm, I did the rattle can spray liner on mine, did you use roll on, if so did it hold up, to the wifes dragging metal across it...mine dont., but it looks better than I thought, hid all the PO gouges.

 

I used a spray on type and it worked fairly well. I would do it again on a black or dark color truck. Just don't want black rails on a white truck. So I guess I'll just try to doctor these up.

 

I didnt care for the black over maroon, I thought of trying to use the paint code(EG) is mine, and see how bad that looked over the black texture look, like the rhino lining you can get color match(close) put in bed, just to check, if no good then back to black.

 

Why not just sand and reclear the tops of the bed?

 

This is what I have decided to try to do. It should work out pretty well. I've done similar projects before.