How to Repair a Truck Bed

August 27th, 2007 by Shenron

Truck owners are generally a loyal bunch when it comes to their trucks. Most truck owners will keep their trucks for years and years even if they have lots of mileage and damage. Truck beds are possibly the most important part of the truck to most owners, they give the truck utility.

With a damaged truck bed, you lose a lot of the truck’s practicality. Truck beds for the most part are fairly simple to fix and generally don’t cost that much money or require lots of time and labor. Here are some tips on how to fix the most common types of problems:

Fixing Rust or Rot in your Truck Bed

Most truck beds are exposed to the elements all year long, what’s worse is that debris can cause water, ice or snow to sit in the bed for days, weeks or even months at a time. If you have noticed that your truck bed is beginning to rust or spot serious rot problems, you can try the following fixes.

Cut out the rust or rot in the bed and replace it with a new piece of sheet metal. Cutting out rust is for serious rust issues only. If you have a small piece of rust in your truck bed then simply sand down the rust, add some rust coat on it, add primer and finish with paint or a filler.

If your truck bed has significant damage due to rust take out your grinder, cutting torch or hacksaw and remove the rusted piece. Now simply sand down the edges and add some rust coat to the area that was sanded down. Once sanded down, take a piece of sheet metal that is about 1 to 2 inches bigger than the hole and place it on top of the hole. You will be bolting the new piece of sheet metal to the hole. Make sure the new piece of sheet metal you are using is strong and treated for outdoor use. One tip is to use carriage bolts when attaching the new piece of metal, these bolts will be flush with the bed. Carriage bolts are also good so that you don’t trip over bolts that rise above the bed.

If your rust is very negligible and you mostly want to prevent it from becoming a problem, there are a few products on the market to strengthen your existing bed. These products are mainly liquid bed applications that are made from polyurethane/rubber and are applied to the bed similar to paint. They are very affordable and take only minutes to apply.

If you love your truck and use your truck bed regularly, make sure to inspect it on a daily basis to catch rust and rot problems before they get too serious.

Fixing a Dent in Your Truck Bed

If you are a truck owner that uses the bed a lot, you already know how easy it can be to make a dent or scratch. Here are some tips on fixing these common occurrences.
An easy way to avoid common dents or scratches is to purchase a bed liner. Bed liners come in a variety of materials such as rubber, chrome and steel. For the most part they are affordable costing from about $100 and up.
If you realize you have a dent then first inspect it to see just how deep it goes. Many times you will be able to pound out a debt from underneath using a rubber mallet.
If the dent can’t be pounded out from underneath, use a suction dent removing tool. Usually these tools work for small to moderate dents. The suction dent removing tool can be purchased usually for less than $50.
If your dent is pretty stubborn, you will have to make a hole in the center of the dent and remove it with a dent tool. Dent tools are a great way to pop out a dent and once the dent is popped out, just sand the hole down and add a little filler then finish with some touch up paint.
For extremely dented beds, you will probably have to remove the dented piece, create a patch as stated above and bolt it on.

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