The bed on our Dodge was pretty beat up.
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The wheel wells had a number of dents in them
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The progression
of the sport of four-wheeling or rockcrawling for many of us has
instituted the necessity of tow rigs. Some of our trail rigs are
becoming more like buggies and are uncomfortable to pack up the
whole family in for a weekend. Some of our rigs or the trails have
also gotten to the point where they make the question of being able
to get back in one piece a reality.
For me, it's
a little of both, but I can't really afford a dedicated trail
rig and a dedicated tow rig, so my tow rig has to support double
duty of hauling my family around during the week and tow support
on the weekends.
Being my family
vehicle, I also want it to look nice and perform all the functions
I would ask of a pickup truck such as towing, hauling, shopping,
mall crawling, kid drop off; date night etc.
One of the
worst-looking places on a truck is the bed - especially if you
don't have some type of bedliner. Today there are myriad choices
and choosing one can be pretty confusing. Many of the companies
have resorted to telling stories about how horrible the other
company's liners are and how much they can damage your truck.
From roll-on do-it-yourself liners to spray-on liners of every
name and composition under the sun to the updates on the classic
drop-in style liner, there seem to be a hundred different companies
touting their wares. I typed in "bedliner"
in a popular search engine and got 21,000 hits!
I started
to call around and looked at a number of the different options
and the most common theme I heard from the installers of spray-in
liners was that a drop-in would cause my bed to rust or the liner
would simply blow out. The most common thing I heard from the
drop-in liner companies was that the spray-in liners ruined the
finish on your bed, no different than the drop-in liners but that
it was simply hidden. Their solution - leave your bedliner in
place and don't worry about what's under it. So my understanding
is that they both have their advantages and disadvantages and
you really need to get what makes you happy.
After talking
to a number of shops I decided on the Pendaliner SR, the SR stands
for "Skid Resistor" and the liner has a rubbery
feel to it, unlike the older style bedliners. In my past experience
with older style drop-in liners, equipment and tools slid all
over the place on the slick plastic surface. I had hopes that
the new SR surface would resolve this problem, as well.
The Penda liner before install |
After arriving
at Johnson
GT to have the liner installed, I asked several more questions
about which type of liner was better
and got one of the more definitive answers I had heard.
"We
usually recommend that contractors and people carrying heavy loads
of metal and steel use a drop-in liner and that those with more
recreational interests use a spary-in liner. The spray-in liners
are nice but they don't protect from large object dents and dings
as well as the drop in's do."
Later on I
called around to a number of other installers and with some slight
variances, I got pretty much the same comments.
The installation
of the Pendaliner is simple. After all, that's one of the benefits
of the drop-in liner. Even so, I chose to have the experts at
Johnson GT install my liner.
Follow along
with the photos and see what they do to install one. They start
with the tailgate piece and move along from there.
Sliding the tailgate piece into place.
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Using an electric drill to install the Scrivets.
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Dropping the liner into place.
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Snapping the sides under the bed rail.
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Inserting the tie-down covers in the rear.
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Inserting the tie-down covers in the front.
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Testing...Testing...1...2...3...
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