I have a 2007 Laramie that has the typical rust issues that we all know about.
My bedsides are TOAST.
The truck is my daily driver and I live in Ontario,Canada. We use TONS of salt on the roads in the winter.

I found a place in South Dakota that make factory style fiberglass bedsides.
They're called E-Glass Products (EGP).
EGP site

I installed their fiberglass tailgate a year or so ago and have been pleased with it.
Link to that thread.
Fiberglass tailgate repair

This is my Pictorial documentation on how I repaired the rusty metal bedsides with fiberglass bedsides.

Started with removal of the bed.
4 bolts, remove wire harness, tail lights and tailgate.
No pic's of that,it was just my Son and I doing that.
but here's the truck bedless.




Now while the bed is off we (my Son and I) will clean up the exposed frame and paint it.
Started with descaling the frame.
Used a Needle scaler and wire wheel to clean up the frame.









I removed the bedsides by drilling out the spot welds along the inside of the top bed-rail, the front vertical edge and the inside lip of the tailgate area.
There is also adhesive under the bed-rail, bonding the outer bedside rail to the inner bedside rail.













Revealing this...




And this...


A lot of surface rust. You can also see the inner and outer wheel well.

My plan was to get rid of as much rust as possible and then "rust convert" the rest.
I used Muriatic acid to dissolve the surface rust.To convert the rust I used a product called Rust Converter Ultra






I swear I took pic's of the Muriatic acid process but can't find them on my phone or camera.
You MUST wear gloves and a respirator when using this stuff.
It would melt the rust away in front of my eyes. Then I would neutralize it with water.

Once dry I applied the rust converter, The rust converter only reacts with rust. If the metal isn't rusty,it won't react with it.
It turns the rusted metal black. Once dry, they say the remaining coating acts as a primer and can be painted over.




I then painted the inside bed-rail with Tremclad rust paint.
I sprayed it with a cheap Harbor Freight gun with a 1.4ml tip
Thinned the rust paint with Naptha 10%by vol. and added a catalyst hardener 3% by vol.









The paint cup on top of the Paint gun is the Harbor Freight version of the 3M PPS system (disposable cup system).
It allows you to spray in any direction, like upside down or sideways, without loosing the supply of paint.
The ability to spray upside down comes in REAL handy.

After a couple coat of rust paint.







CONTINUED...

 

After descaling and wire wheeling the frame I used the rust converter and hit the frame with 3 coats rust paint.
It;s not perfect by any means . Just trying to extend the life of this truck.
I have a gallon of Fluid Film that I'll be spraying into the inside of the frame as well.
















I then moved on to the outer wheel-well (W/W). They were badly rusted as well.
The bedsides were part of a kit that included the bedsides, outer W/W's, outer rockers, inner rocker (metal) and cab corners.
The outer W/W attaches to the outer bedside with panel adhesive. Let's just say the W/W/outer bedside will never rust again.

I cut the outer W/W off with my grinder and a thin metal cutting disc.




Taking care not to cut into the inner W/W




Then I drilled out the spot welds and removed the remaining part of the outer wheel-well. In this pic I had already descaled and wire wheeled the inner W/W.






After smearing on a couple coats of rust converter I test fit the New fiberglass outer W/W.






I had to have the bedside on to make sure the outer W/W was positioned correctly. The I drilled 4 locating holes and marked the W/W (wheel-well) with alignment lines.
You can see the pop rivets in the alignment holes.






The panel adhesive came in the kit. Instructions say to lay a 3/4" bead to fasten the outer W/W to the inner W/W.









I clamped the inner+outer W/W together and then fastened them together with clamps and 2 pop rivets at each corner.






I spread the excess panel adhesive with my finger.






I primed the outer W/W with some 2K primer I already had.
Mixed it 4:1:1 (primer: activator: reducer)). sprayed it with the same gun I used to spray the rust paint on the frame.










I did end up painting them black using the same black rust paint.


CONTINUED....

 

Then I moved on to the bedsides.
The bedsides arrived damaged. Looks like someone tried to bend the box in half. I accepted delivery because I thought I could fix the damage.

Most of the damage was in both the tail light areas.On the drivers side there what seemed to be damaged areas that looked like something was poked into the backside of the panel.















So come to find out that those fine cracks are called "spider cracks" as they are in the Gel Coat . I also found out you can't just prime over that and then paint because the cracks will appear through the paint.

I needed to grind out all the Spider Cracks, grind out all the broken fiberglass as those areas the fiberglass has de-laminated, then lay in new fiberglass and resin.
Rinse and repeat until you have built up enough layers for the thickness required....that took WAAAY longer than I thought!
Plus I have zero experience with fiberglass and fiberglass repair.

I used off the shelf stuff you can find anywhere. Started by piecing back the tail light area's.
Just sayin...it gets real ugly before it gets better lookin.




So this area has de-laminated. I had to grind out the white area ,without going through to the other side, apply some resin,lay in some fiberglass mat the more resin and then let it harden before applying another layer.




Once the inside hardened I could grind the outside down to the layers I had just placed.
Again building up layers to get the required thickness.
Finish that up with fiberglass Bondo, sand (lots of that) and finish with regular Bondo and spot putty. and that needs to be done to all the damaged area's...like I said, it take a long time!

I ground the spider crack deep enough but not too deep that I went through and filled the cracks with resin.








And on the backside I layered in some fiberglass mat and resin








The next series of pic's shows the steps on how I repaired around the tail light area.

I crudely attached this together while the panel was on the box to get the alignment right in relation to the tail light.





Most of this was sanded away




The clear area was missing or in pieces.




Building up layers. Then sanding down to get the shape correct. used tape to contain the resin, and no, the resin does not stick to the tape.








Then some thin layers of Bondo.




Refining the contours with thin layers of Bondo.




All back together




Even got it flat.




Then I primed it. Yes...it's supposed to be tapered.




Ready to be installed.






CONTINUED...

 

once you've replaced all the body panels with fiberglass you need to recreate the frame in carbon fiber and make a rust proof truck

 

I have fiberglass frame rails coming

 

Hello, everyone, i am new here, can i ask a question?

 

Of course. That's why this forum was created .

 

After fixing the damaged bedsides I sprayed the inside of the bedsides with primer and that same black rust paint.

before



Here the Boy is cleaning the inside with Lacquer thinner.





After




And after a couple coats of black paint.
Used the same mixing recipe as when I painted the frame.
I poured the paint in a container, reduced it with Naptha 10% by vol. then added the catalyst hardener 3% by vol.
example: 500cc paint, 50cc Naptha, roughly 10-15cc catalyst hardener.








I had already pre-fit the bedsides and drilled rivet holes for mounting which makes final assembly pretty easy.
Just had to smear out the panel adhesive in the correct area's and methodically install the bedside.














Got my clamps ready.






Then starting at the rear of the bed...
I slide the tail light flange over the metal edge of the inner bedside and worked my way down to the front of the bedside.
-Insert my 1st rivet at the tail light area on the bed rail
-next 1 rivet in the outer wheel-well to outer beside wheel-well flange
-and lastly 1 rivet at the front of the bedside.
I only inserted the rivets, I didn't "pop" them in.
Once those three were in I inserted ALL the rivets.

Clamped down the bed rail and "popped" the rivets in.









Then moved to the wheel-well
- Pop rivets were already installed
-clamped the outer wheel-well to outer bedside with the large Vise Grips.
-"Poped" the rivets
- clamped the rest of the wheel-well together





Lastly the front of the bed.
-all the rivets were already inserted
-clamped everything in place
-"popped" the rivets
-made sure my clamps were tight"ish". (tight,not too tight)






As soon as I could I removed/smeared the excess panel bond away anywhere it had squeezed out.

Then installed the tailgate to recheck my fitment.
Everything looked good. Gaps were good, no rubbing, body lines lined up.






I kept the clamps on until the next morning. Instructions say to leave clamps on for a MIN. of 2hrs.







I ended up spraying more primer on both bedsides as I sanded it away in a couple spots trying to refine my body work.
Did the final sanding on the primer with P600gt sandpaper and now it's ready for paint.


CONTINUED

 

OK...today we FINALLY paint.

This is the paint I used.

Got it online from Urechem
This should link to the exact kit I ordered.
Paint Kit
$449.00 all in.
Gallon of base,Gallon of clear, 2 quarts reducer, 2 quarts activator. I opted for the Glamour Clear which is $50 more.
Mixed 2:1 (Paint: reducer) I added a dash of activator as well.






Mixed it up for about 5min with the paddle mixer you see in the last pic.

Sparkly







I reviewed my tech sheet






My weather conditions were perfect. It was actually about 75F by the time I got to painting.






I started with about 900ml of base.
It's just above the 5 mark on the 2:1:1 scale.






The added the reducer to just above the next 5 mark on the 2:1:1 scale.






And then added some activator to make a total of 1500ml sprayable Base.






I premade 3 Base Coat's. I ended up make one more as the Fiberglass really seems to soak it up.







Sprayed it with my Iwata LPH-400. Nice gun that I rarely use because I think it too good to run Alkyd paint through (tractor paint).






Before spraying I did a final wipe down with some wax + grease remover. Then once that dried another wipe down with a Tack Cloth.






After a couple test sprays I laid down a light 1st coat.






In total...4 coats of base.
I'm sure that's prob. too much but it took that many coats to get what "I" thought the panel should look like.
Nice even coverage with no blochyness or light area's.







CONTINUED...

 

Next was the Clear Coat.

I couldn't premix like I did with the Base Coat because the Clear Coat has a 30-45min. pot life.
Luckily the Clear is easy to mix up using the 2:1:1 scale on the mixing cup.
Here's the Clear I used.







My setting's on the spray gun were the same as the Base except I opened up how much paint is let out of the reservoir.












After 3 coats of clear.






Even though I watered down the cement pad to keep the dust down, I couldn't do anything about the bugs and got a few in the Clear Coat.
I'm doing this OUTSIDE... I SHOULD expected this.
Still turned out great though.






Drivers side.












I let it dry for 24hr's before touching or disturbing it.


CONTINUED....