Pet peeve: Spray-in bedliner on dented bed

[FORDification]

There's a truck listed on E-bay that's a freakin' gorgeous truck....with one glaring exception, and it's something that's kind of a pet peeve with me:



See the major dents on the wheelwells? This seller takes an otherwise beautiful truck and adds a spray-in bedliner without at least taking a few minutes and banging out the wheelwell dents. It's not that hard, folks! Just remove the rear wheels and spend at least a few minutes up underneath with a ballpeen hammer and bang the dents out. It doesn't have to be perfect, since the bedliner will hide of a lot of it. Actually, most spray-in liner installations that I've seen was significantly thicker than what this guy has his, but even so, large dents there will still be fairly obvious.

So...if you ever plan to get a spray-in liner, please take a few minutes to at least hit the bigger dents with a hammer from the bottom. Once the bedliner is sprayed in it'll be too late. Well, maybe not....they're actually semi-flexible and might withstand some 'metal cohersion'. But still...considering how easy it is to rough it out, it just seems like it would be common sense to straighten out the metal a little bit beforehand.

Incidentally, here's the listing:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Ford-F-2 ... otohosting

Sorry for the rant....but this truck's bed probably is the most obvious case of this I've seen, so I thought I'd point it out. (And hopefully it doesn't belong to a forum member here, or it'll be another case of 'open mouth / insert foot'.)

[68F250]

Yuck! I hear ya man.

How about the goofy two-tone tailgate?

[heep70]

Thanks Keith, you just added more work to my list while I am doing the body work .

[Joe Kriston]

That is a beautiful truck,but that certainly doesn't look like any kind of a shop sprayed in bedliner that I've ever seen...I didn't catch that two-tone tailgate...good eye,Barry...Did trucks that color come with a black painted dashboard ....

Personally,I never liked sprayed-in bedliners...They're probably very practical for every-day use,and are a Godsend to the trucks in the rust-belt,but IMO,you're completely altering the look of what you're trying to protect...Seems like it would be harder to remove the bedliner material,than the scratches it was meant to protect if you ever went back to painting it original...Maybe if you could get it in the same color as the truck I'd like them better...

[heep70]

That looks like a padded black dash pad to me.

[68F250]

And the door panels are '68 Rangers, it's all screwed up!

[Joe Kriston]

Greg,I'm talking about where the glovebox,etc. is...Shouldn't that part be light blue like the rest of the interior?...

[68F250]

Whoops! It is a '68. Then the grille is wrong.

I don't think it originally had a combination two-tone, there's no trim for it on the back of the cab.

[Joe Kriston]

I don't know much about bodywork,but it almost seems like it would be a good idea if somebody made remanufactured wheel wells for those beds....Seems like no matter how well the rest of the bed is preserved,those wheel wells get the crap beat out of them with stones,blowouts and such...damage from underneath....Especially if you find an old farm truck that spent much of it's life on gravel roads...

[FORDification]

Yeah, I believe the dash area should have been painted the body color. I suppose someone could have special-ordered it in black, but I'd be more willing to bet that whoever 'restored' it just installed black 'cause it was 'cool'. (and I can't say I blame them...it IS!)

Well, as long as we're pickin' on this '68...

- It's got a '69 Ranger grille but not the matching headlight doors
- With a Ranger package it should have the door-jamb switches for the dome light, but MIA on this one

[Joe Kriston]

Just curious,would it have said 'Custom Cab' on the cabside if it was originally a two-tone?

And that looks like some aftermarket gauges under the dash but no a/c...

[68F250]

Nah, you could get a two-tone on any of 'em (stylesides that is).

Hey Keith, I think I see the wires for the courtesy light in the hole on the passenger side.

[FORDification]

No, the Custom Cab was a trim level. The '67-'69 models had the base model, then Custom Cab and then Ranger.

[FORDification]

Hey....did any of you guys notice that the VIN tag is riveted to the driver-side door jamb, and not the rear of the door?

[68F250]

Yeah I was wondering what that was when I was checking out the door striker, I don't think it's suppose to be knurled. Wait, yes it is, I forget what year that changed.