Salt water or spray can get in any number of ways from underneath, or even a pinhole in the bedliner material and salt water from snowy winter boots (yes, there are sometimes pinholes in the liner). A little sits on the floor and doesn't evaporate and begins to cause rust. Or rust may start underneath in an uprotected seam, or around a drain plug ..any number of areas. Eventually rusts through a hole and it spreads like a cancer from there on out. Once you get rust under the thick beadliner material you can't do much about it. If my neighbor didn't trade off his King Ranch F350 that had a hole in the bed the size of my hand (not that old of a truck), I would send a picture of it.

I'm not anti-spray bedliner in any way, I'm just pointing out there are potential downsides too. Overall if it was a Pro job on a non-rusty floor it would certainly help prevent rust (from proliferating from the TOP down) much better just bare paint. But don't forget about the bottom up (if yer in a rust zone).

Rust converter isn't a magic bullet BTW. No legit bodyshop or serious auto restoration house would use it over media blasting or metal replacement, which is to say, remove the rust in the first place and coat with a zinc-rich 'etching' primer.

 

No salt way down here in central Alabama. But...it did spend some of it's life in Wyoming...I'll pull the carpet and check it out in the next few week. thanks.

 

Just keep in mind that the molded drop-in mats may not fit as well without the carpet and padding in place. I'd pull the carpet and padding and see what things look like. You quite likely will be doing some degree of rust repair and recoating with something durable like roll-on bed liner, epoxy paint, etc. In any case, whatever you choose for coating you absolutely must spend the time to do good prep.

 

That's a good point ...he's right. Plus the vinyl on a steel floor is likely to wear through right away where the heel goes w/o some padding below it. The most ideal would be to get some non water absorbing foam to put where the carpet padding once was. Isn''t that the same as household carpet foam. Isn't there some carpet foam which doesn't absorb (hold) water?

 

Have a look at this: https://www.bilthamber.com/electrox
and if you're worried about chipping it, this: https://www.bilthamber.com/paints-an...s/epoxy-mastic

Not sure if this particular brand is available in the USA but it'll give you an idea.

 

<!--td {border: 1px solid #ccc;}br {mso-data-placement:same-cell;}--><!--td {border: 1px solid #ccc;}br {mso-data-placement:same-cell;}-->Exactly! More of an off-road guy so just a flat floor carpet won't work so I just upgraded it with all-weather, https://www.jeepsareus.com/sku/82214855-fs.html . Didn't go for bed lining the whole floor since I want to try if all-weather mat would work first, would the dirt (but most especially water) spill outside the hard mat and it didn't as long as you won't hardly push the mat. I think if you have kids then bed lining would be the option because they are a little bit active inside the car so for sure if you would just place a hard mat then they would kick it for sure.