removing bedcover - ewwwww

[BLoG]

Alright, i need some brainstorms here. After installing my rollpan yesterday, my truck looks really badly out of proportion with the huge ARE hard cover on the back. I want to get rid of it, as i don't use it that often, don't need the extra weight, and i really hate how it messes up the profile of the truck.

The thing is, this cover has left a TON of the rubber from it's gasket all over the top of my tailgate, and the bedrails are horribly scuffed and scratched from the brackets.

Add to the mix that when the previous owner repainted the truck, he didn't repaint the inside of the bed (93 no clearcoat pink), and you'll see why i haven't taken the cover off yet.

So i want to hear some ideas on how to solve this. Preferably cheap ideas since I don't want to spend a ton of money repainting (eec tuner, roller rockers, new tires, and slicks+wheels await)

ideas so far:

cheap and ugly black plastic drop-in liner that goes over the bedrails

expensive color-matched spray-in liner (met some guy that said he'd take a shot at matching my stripe with a spray-in liner) and try to find some plastic caps for the bedrails like what the gen2s have.

 

[kckid]

Why don't you sell the hard cover and get a soft tonno cover. I put a new tonno cover from Extang that is a fulltilt tonno. It is a soft cover which would be lighter, and it opens up like a hard cover so you get into your bed easy.

 

[svtpickemup]

The same thing happened when I removed my Leer hard cover. When the bed of my truck was repainted by the previous owner, they did not remove the foam. When I removed the foam, there was a distinctive paint line between the old and the new.

I have an under the rail liner and some bed caps I found at Summit Racing. I really like the setup a lot. I will never own a spray in liner---I just can't stand them. Anyhoooo, that's an idea. I'll try to post some pics of it.

 

[BLoG]

Those both sound like doable ideas guys. svtpickmeup I'd love to see pics of those caps. Are they low-profile?

 

[svtpickemup]

Here's a link to the company:

http://www.bakliner.com/procaps.htm

I bought them from Summit. You need the ones without holes, though. Apparently, the bed stake location changed on F-150s over the years--I ordered the ones with holes and they did not line up.

Anyhow, the caps are very low profile---the pics on the web page do not do them justice. They work with any other bed mounted accessories such as toneaus and toolboxes because of their low profile.

They were the only option for me since over the rail liners look atrocious and I actually load stuff in my Lightning---big, heavy, nasty stuff.

I'll snap some pics tonight if it clears up a little.And you can paint them this color to match your truck!

 

[BLoG]

Did it come with the tailgate piece?

I think since they are textured plastic I'd just leave them black instead of painting them.

 

[svtpickemup]

No, it did not come with the tailgate piece.

My bed liner has a cover on the taligate that extends over the edge. It does not match very well. When I go to a BedRug, I will purchase the tailgate piece to match.

 

[LightningSVT18]

What about a flush mount Hard tonneu cover. Then you could color match your truck with the stripe and not have the funny tall look. Just my .02. I know alittle expensive but it's just a thought.

 

[kevinlawson82]

I too have the ARE top....and also plan on getting rid of it once my roll pan is on, but Im gonna go ahead and get any paint work done on scratches it leaves behind. Partly because I have some rock ships I want to cover up as well. So my vote is getting paintwork done

 

[Nick Wilson]

I had a trimark (low pro truck cap) cover on my 93. I agree that it messes up the lines on the truck. I sold it while the truck was in the shop. It was nice sometimes, but I never have anything in the bed that needs covered. I think the flush covers are nice but I've seen ones that have caved in from snow.