Durabak, Herculiner, Rhino Lining Realities

[Bluetribal]

OK, so a buddy and I removed our flares and Durabaked my LC and Herculined his 00' Tundra.
I am starting this post for a few reasons:
1) I need some advice on how to fix my edges where I removed the tape.
2) I am not sure if everyone understands how much work this actually is.
3)There should be a thread in the FAQ where everyone can add there experiences, show off there before & afters, and give techniques old & new.
4) I'm sure you brilliant minds out there will come up with more.

OK so onto my situation. I guess I didn't do enough research into doing this job and may have been half a short of doing a great job, I also probably didn't do enough prep work on the body, used the right tape or combination of tapes to get the job done right.
So my problem started when I was removing the tape after my fourth coat of Durabak wich seemed to dry very quickly on an unusually hot San Diego day (90° aprox). The first fender and door came off great then the Durabak started pulling off as I removed the tape. As I got around to the tail gate it just started going to HE!! where I had to pull iwth one hand and cut with an exacto knife with the other hand. The last side I did saw practically no sun all day but still hardened quickly and made removal difficult. So now I have edges on the door sill and on the tail gate where I can pull the lining away from the body. This is where more prep work near the tape would have been a GR8 idea. But after seeing my buddy the day before remove tape from his Herculiner job with no problem I wasn't worried and figured mine would go just as smoothly. So to fix these problems I am thinking of cutting back at the door sills so it doesnt wrap over or using what Durabak I have left over to finish off the sill, after really good prep work. I am also considering finding a good clear sealant that I could put on the edges where the paint meats the rough stuff.

As for points 2 and 3 I will get into those a bit later since my lunch break is over but I will say that this is a HUGE JOB and all threads I saw started off with look what I did this weeked, well guess what it was ALL weekend. As it is I spent over 2 days doing mine and probably could have done prepone weekend and laying it down the other weekend.
And as for 3 Romer I am not saying this thread should be inserted into the FAQ but lets see where it goes and maybe someone who has done an excelent job with this and has body shop experience could do a write-up.

Now for the pics and it is really hard to keep this thread short and sweet, trust me I have been thinking about it since Monday.
Before Without Flares (LUV it without flares)

After 4 coats and tape finally removed

Here is the door sill where my foot steps when getting out of the truck.

And a close-up of where the tail gate just went to HE!!

Oh and in case any of you have a Tundra here is how my buddies turned out.

 

[Box Rocket]

Sorry it turned into such a hassle for you. From a distance it looks great. Those problem areas may get worse over time but my guess is you're the only one who will notice them for a while.

 

[johnfj]

I have used the durabak product on a interior of a duck boat, a whole jeep commando and the front grill of a 1976 bronco all three of these jobs I had great results. Unfortunately I have less than successfull results on pick-up beds that did not have the prep done as correctly. The only way I have kept it from starting the peeling is to either extremely rough sand the finish or sand blast the surface. that is not very palpable to do on a lc. the duck boat alunimum was sandblasted and then etched primered, the commando was 80 grit hand sanded and was used so I didnt have to fix every little imperfection in the finish. Both these vehicles the boat and truck are used to push through trees and brush in the mississippi river bottom and are extremely hard to scratch or scuff off the finish. Infact the only real scratches have come from metal to metal contact ie poor job of backing the boat into the barn etc. The pickup trucks have all been new vehicles for my buddies and they all got uptight watching someody destroy the factory finish.
The other most important part is making sure you use xylene and dont let anybody tough it before you apply the product.
It been a while since I have spryed something but harbor freight sold a spatter spry gun for about 5 bucks that was the ticket to applying the product with out climbing all over everything and comtaminating the surface. I took very little xylene less than 10% to used as a thinner to spray properly out of the gun.
Lastly the boat has been sprayed for a little over 7 years and does have some uv dulling but has not compromised the integrity, but again it was not put on to win a beutty contest.
As with any paint job it only as good as the prep, and you are correct its a hell of a lot of work.

 

[Bluetribal]

Yeah, I used the Xylne and when putting on the aluminum tape I used a rag between my hands and applying.
I got the UV coated DK Gray Durabak so if it does end up staying on then hopefully it won't fade bad.

 

[dogcatch'n]

try taking your tape off when the duraliner is still a little moist...don't wait until the coat you painted on is hard/set...

 

[Bluetribal]

Thats exactly what I tried to do but due to a warmer day here in SoCal it dried too quick. Plus by the time you get all the way around your vehicle when doing the entire bottom it takes a while.

 

[dogcatch'n]

you might have to get a buddy to help you with your project...

 

[shep]

Looks good! Prep is the key to avioding little spots like that though. You could probably carefully remove the loose edges by cutting back from them with a razor blade or exacto, the remask and really rough up those spots then re-apply. If you are careful it should look fine. You'd notice it on close inspection but it would keep it from peeling back. Roughing it up sufficiently and cleaning it off with xylene before applying the liner is a must.

 

[firetruck41]

Pics don't seem to be working.

 

[Bluetribal]

Pics are working for me firetruck and Shep yeah I think that is the best solution so I plan to do that this afternoon and tomorrow.

I have to say to those of you thinking of doing this project it is a pretty extreme mod and this whole week besides worrying about the edges I have felt a little weird knowing I have stucco all over my truck. But the comments from people at work are pretty funny.

 

[kup99]

Similar thing happend to me, but I just removed the tape.. retaped, and touched up those areas where the bedlinder chipped or peeled. Then I quickly removed the tape while the liner was still very wet. Pretty much painted with a brush , and took the take aff as soon as I was finished. Mine seems to be holding up well.. It has been a couple of months now (5-6 washes in the car wash), and no more peeling or chipping. I just did my door handles (mostly because the paint was loooking like crap) and I like the look of it even more now that the handles are done.

I will post some pics soon,

Oh, and for anyone thinking of doing his mine took me about 20 hours.. I had 2 sided foam tape on my mouldings that I had to use a rubber eraser wheel to remove, so that added a fair bit more time for me.

Good Luck,

 

[Bluetribal]

Some other tips I would add for removing the foam left over from the flares would be Simple Green and a plastic puddy spackle. But only rub the body where you are going to cover with rhino, from the bottom up.
And when you accidently roll past the tape just wipe it off with a clean cloth right away. And when you peal back the tape you will find some rhino that bled at the seams in the tape just use bug and tar remover and it should come off. DO NOT USE THE XYLENE WHERE RHINO IS NOT GOING.

 

[Bluetribal]

OK, so I fixed my major problem areas this weekend. One main problem was I didn't do the door jams and the Durabak ended at the corner of the door sill. So I re-taped and cut away the lining on the drivers door sill where I had pealing.

Here is how it blended just an hour later and it's decent but I hope it gets a little better after a night of drying and sealing.

Here is the back door

The other problem was the tail gate so I just re-taped that a little higher and used a small dremel brush to chip away an 1/8" of lining and scuff up the paint again. So here are some shots.
The left side blended a little better than the right and I probably should have bought another roller instead of using a brush.
But at least someone will probably learn from my experience.
Left

Right

 

[LandCrusher'70]

The fix looks great.

Your "left" and "right" look wrong. (same image?)

BTW: that's a nice looking Dremel case.

 

[Bluetribal]

Opps let me fix those pics. Yeah those were both left side.

Yeah the case is pretty nice, too bad the dremel is a cheap piece of crap. But it was free from a company Christmas party.

 

[concretejungle]

now that looks clean and done right. Nice job. I can't wait to see if yours fades out any since it's grey. My black does, so i have to hit it with armorale every so often.

 

[Bluetribal]

Well I got the UV Durabak so I hope not. On the other hand my buddy with the Tundra can't wait for his Herculiner to fade since he has 7 year old Rhino in the bed that is almost gray now.

 

[Bluetribal]

I have been getting a number of PM's lately asking questions about the Durabak Liner I did, how it has held up and how many coats.

First off, I will state that the Durabak is very textured. I called it stucco when I first had it on. But it has held up very well and the UV coating has surprisingly held it's color better than I would have imagined.
I did use aluminum tape over the holes, if you are comfortable with bondo I would recommend a light coat over the tape because with just the tape you can see an indention if you look really closely.
I did 4 coats of Durabak using 1 gallon of material. I did end up buying an additional quart to repair a few spots you can see up in previous posts.
If you want a smoother finish I would recommend the Al's Liner and I will see that being applied first hand as my buddy is going to go that route with his Lexus.

Anyway I think that answers all the questions I have had over the last couple of weeks via my PM.

So this was Day 1

And this was last August, 2012 - 5 years and 9 months later.

 

[akarilo]

I went with Al's, which comes with an "adhesion promoter" that you spray on and let tack up before applying liner. Prior to that I used 80 grit sand paper, then wiped it down with lacquer thinner. It stuck like a champ and the tape peeled up effortlessly. Prep is the key IMO.

 

[concretejungle]

Exactly! When i did my liner, my buddy at the body shop who does it for a living said you have to prep like a SOB or it's a waste of time. We ended up grinding mine down to the primer, then sprayed; let it dry and then sprayed again.

Only spot where mine is pulling away is where i used bondo like an idiot to fill in the flare holes instead of welding them up.