Gravel road rash, front corner of bed

[toddiscdn]

Im surprised I havent seen anything on here about this as its happened to most of my trucks, maybe I just drive more gravel than most.

Anyway, it always seems the front bottom corner of the bed gets sand blasted with gravel over time. I know this is a reality, but I cant totally avoid driving gravel and sometimes its even fun.

Im surprised there is no commercially available protection from it, they have the Bushwacker trail armour for the cab, but nothing here, Im sure I can fab something up, but thought Id see if anyone had ideas as well.

Looks worse in pic. as you can see the layer of Plasti-dip peeling away that I put on for extra protection. On my former Frontier I bedlined it and painted over it, but eventually it looked like shit as well. I see some F-150s and chevys have a small piece of plastic in this area, Im thinking something like that.

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[DuckDCoy]

Dang, I grew up out in the country and lived on some horrible gravel roads and never had issues this bad, maybe some mud flaps might help?

 

[DukeCanBuildit]

Hey Todd,

I used to go gravel runnin' with my cousins in Clinton when I was a teenager - didn't realize we were doing that to the trucks!

Is that with stock tires and wheels?

 

[toddiscdn]

I guess its just me? Weird that the exact same thing has happened to my last 2 trucks also.

I have mud flaps and maybe having rock chucking tires does not help, but these Wildpeaks have only been on a month or so, rest was with the stockers........ running boards maybe?

 

[HoosierT]

Im surprised I havent seen anything on here about this as its happened to most of my trucks, maybe I just drive more gravel than most.

Anyway, it always seems the front bottom corner of the bed gets sand blasted with gravel over time. I know this is a reality, but I cant totally avoid driving gravel and sometimes its even fun.

Im surprised there is no commercially available protection from it, they have the Bushwacker trail armour for the cab, but nothing here, Im sure I can fab something up, but thought Id see if anyone had ideas as well.

Looks worse in pic. as you can see the layer of Plasti-dip peeling away that I put on for extra protection. On my former Frontier I bedlined it and painted over it, but eventually it looked like shit as well. I see some F-150s and chevys have a small piece of plastic in this area, Im thinking something like that.

You’re obviously running aftermarket tires. What’s the offset on your wheels? The pic looks like your in the negative and running a roller skate setup.

 

[Deleted member 1634]

You're definitely not the only one. This is how and why every vehicle I've owned long enough has rusted away starting at the rocker panels. It chips from gravel and road dust, salt gets in there in the winter, rust starts, and repeat.

I used Durabak bedliner, based on some research saying it was one of the easiest to apply yourself. It also comes in a variety of different colors and two different textures (rough/classic and smooth) as well, which is really nice. I chose smooth dark gray, hoping to match the sport magnetic color trim. It ended up being a little lighter tone than I'd like, but most people won't even notice it, and even now I forget it's there. Whole thing cost $81 including shipping, and took about 3 hours to do from start to finish. And most of that time was making sure the tape was in the correct spot and waiting for the first coat to dry prior to applying the second coat.

I already had a handful of rock chips that were exposing bare metal in the area I covered. And with how aggressive salt is in the 7-8 months of winter we get, that'll rust out in no time. I did also cover the bottom door seam as well, since I've seen plenty of vehicle rust out starting there too. I also have a handful of chips on the hood. The bumper seems fine and the skid plate (FX4) below that only has one ding from the snowblower running away on me and ramming into it this past winter.

It looks amateur, but that's because it is. You can also get shops to do it for you, but my local shop quoted me $700+ for them to do essentially the same thing I did. In the end I'm very happy with the way it came out.

 

[toddiscdn]

You’re obviously running aftermarket tires. What’s the offset on your wheels? The pic looks like your in the negative and running a roller skate setup.

Being as Im old and dont know what a "roller skate setup" is, Id say I dont have that, lol. I can be a bit negative at times though

Yes on the tires, Falken wildpeaks on stock rims.

 

[toddiscdn]

Thanks for the reply's, good to see some others solutions, I just did black bedliner on my silver Frontier then painted over so when that wore through it kinda looked like crap, as you say, " It looked amateur, but that's because it was"

I,ll have to look at it again once it warms up around here.

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