I am restoring a 79 f250 4x4. I finally found a rust free bed and I want to keep it that way. They seem to want to rust out on the upper part of the wheel lip where the brace attaches. You guys got any suggestions or been sucessful in rust proofing this area of the bed?

 

yeah I do.

get up in there & brush out any loose crap that might be trapped where the outer wheel house comes to meet the outer bed side skin. get it nice & clean & coat it with something good like a por-15 or an eastwood verson of the same, heck, even an epoxy primer would help. but get it sealed up tight with something & then if you like grab a can of paintable rocker shield (not undercoating, that stuff is junk) and top coat what ever you seal it up with. Then, if you really want to do something meaningful, get a metal hole saw, like a 1.5 " or so & get up in the back of the truck bed & cut yourself a hole from the top of the wheel hump on each side of the bed, then find a nice rubber pop in type of plug or cap from a hardware store to press into the hole. This is real handy for when you clean your truck in the future & I don't know why they didn't come like this new from the factory. you can pop that plug out & spray down that hole into that area that's so prone to catch & hold dirt that rusts these truck through from the inside out.

 

I have the same dilema. Found a rust free bed with needing of some minor dent work, but in great condition and want to keep it that way. Here is what I did. I took out the inner fender arches to see what it was like on the inside of those lips. Luckily I took those out because even from Texas there was some surface rust starting. After I took those out, I cleaned, scraped all the surface rust off and applied some rust proofing paint all on the inside. Then, rather than putting those inner arches back in, I braced the inner lip with some small rod and then made a bracket out of angle iron to weld from the inner lip to the floor for strengthening. After It was all done, the sides actually felt stronger with my homeaid bracket than with those troublesome inner arches. I'll see if I can round up some pics. Can't find the camera I took them with. Took some work and I had much help with ideas and the welding, but well worth it at this point. I actually knew someone else who did the same thing 10 years ago and too this day, no rust. You can get behind and wash all the grime out. It's the "wedge" effect that causes the rust. I spent a good deal of time washing the under side of the bed before the process while it was upside down and still couldn't get all the grime out until I took those inner arches out. Look at the 67-72 beds. You don't see them rust out at the arches hardly at all, but from 73 and up, most beds rust out there. So, time will tell.

 

Wow, This is exactly what wanted to know, Thanks guys!!!!

 

By inner arches are you guys referring to the plastic liners? I want to do my bed and was going to remove put some metal in it to fix the holes. then sand blast do rust bullet the whole thing then rough sand and do rhino or other bed coating under and inside! But I come up with some crazy Ideas at times and just end up doing it what is in my mind when I start the work.

 

it's just a real tough area to repair once it has rusted too far from the back side...

if i have holes over the wheel arches on a bed I just rip the whole bed side off & put a whole new skin on.

 

I'm talking about the inner metal fender arches. Not easy to take out.

 

so the inside of the bed where it is arched or is there another layer of metal where it's welded together?

 

fluid film twice a year. Do the whole truck.