Thread: Bed liner or undercoat

Tweet

I need to put some sort of protective coating on the steel underside of my project car. I see that have choices of spray can undercoating from $1.99 Advance Auto crap up to the 3M gold plated stuff. Then someone said think about Hippo bed liner material. Good? Bad?? Lousy idea???

I'm for sure not going to use the $1.99 stuff and I really dislike buying any overpriced 3M products just on principle .

Since there are always good ideas from others here, I'd like to hear them as I'm just about to jack the body up on horses within the next few days, clean off the surface rust, epoxy prime and have at it

As you already know, I'm currently using the bedliner stuff, but I have also used a Urethane product in the past. It is the same product, but packaged several different ways. One product is called "trailer coat" and the other is "underwater metal primer". Without a doubt it is the toughest coating I have found if you really want to preserve steel.

I did my truck bed with it before I put in the bed liner, and I also coated the complete underside of the '84 Capri that I ultimately sold to my Kid. Downside is that it is a silver color (but you can topcoat that with some other undercoating or paint product) and also, you DON'T want to get any on you.....anywhere. I wore it for 3 weeks till it wore off.

The reason I use something like this first on steel is because undercoatings really don't provide any ruststopping/priming properties, they just keep water off of it. If you do something like this first, then undercoat, the bottom of the car will outlast you.

BTW, you are right, the $ 1.49 undercoatings are crap. The rubberized 3M types are much much better, and dry well.

Don

I did the whole body in epoxy primer first and then used this stuff.

http://www.amazon.com/Dupli-Color-Tr...009441-7468457

You can get it at any parts house. It's got good adhesion, and rolls on nice (and I recommend rolling it on to get a smoother suface for undercoat). It's okay, but i'd find something else next time. It just seems like it dries too hard to be an undercoat. In the places where I masked, the coating broke or chipped as I removed the tape as opposed to stretching or bending some. It doesn't seem to have any sound deadening properties, but it's good if you just want something to pretect and seal better than paint.

I think I will do the bedliner undercoat on my cab (51 chevy 3600) as soon as I finish the body work and before I paint it. Would it be better to undercoat it before I bolt it down or wait until everything is in place and bolted in?

I think I would do it before you mount it. Not only will you have easier access to the entire undersurface, but you can get in all the little nooks and crannys. It's tough once the frame and stuff are in the way IMO.

Don