I recently got some skid rails and put on 2 coats of spray-on duplicolor bedliner on them. First time I touched them to a rock, the paint chipped off. How many coats is ideal to keep this from happening? Note: I didn't prep the metal, but it was completely bare metal.

 

it will do this even if you have 3 to 4 coats on like i did it is in the prep not the coats and the spray can stuff is cheap any way

 

^^x2. Prep is a must.

 

How do I prep it and how difficult will it be to remove the liner already on there?

 

Shouldn't be too hard to take off if it chipped off that easy. Use a scraper or wire brush or angle grinder with some sort of abrasive. For prep I'd use a flapper wheel on an angle grinder or something like that to scuff it up really good (the better its scuffed, the better it will stick), wipe all surfaces with acetone to remove any grease or debris and then paint. I think with the bedliner you have to do the first coat and then any other coats should be applied while its still tacky because it doesn't adhere very well to itself when the base coat is totally dry.

 

It's definately in the prep. When I did my lower quarters with the stuff, I spend over half the time a spent on it taping and sanding/scuffing the surface prior to painting. I even used a self etching primer too, but that was probably overkill. It hasn't so much as flinched at any of the objects I have dragged the XJ past since and it still looks as good as when I painted it!

 

Bare metal you need to lay down a primer first. It will stick much better. Scuff and clean the metal, lay down a primer, scuff and clean again if needed, lay down your coats.

Some will say it is overkill, but I rather go overboard a bit than have my paint/liner flaking off.

 

Alright, so the old liner should just chip off? Any tips for making that go faster?

 

Any auto parts store wil lsell paint remover tools (I got mine at the Home Depot). They attach to a drill and you just get to work. I'd think this would go quickly sine the bedline flaked easily, but I'm not sure how fast it would eat through the tools. Check out this post for a pic of the paint removers I used (https://www.cherokeeforum.com/showpo...postcount=2234). The one on the left liked to walk with the drill. I used the coarse bristle and it did great on rust and helped to score the metal. The disk shaped on is wire with a rubber coating on it and is much easier on the metal and it is a great tool for removing paint. It also gets into some tighter spaces. I'd get a couple of these and have your drill batteries charged up. Again, I'm not sure how difficult the bedliner will be to remove, but if you can't work it off with tools like these, you'd probably have to go for a scraper or chemicals. Hopefully others will have more ideas. Let us know how it goes.

After this is done, I'd imagine liberal use of acetone and etching primer would be the way to go. I think I'll learn from this experience and use the acetone, primer, liner sequence for my rockers.


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