What are my best options? Patch job, fender flares, or if it gets real bad a new bed?

What is everyone else doing? My truck still has a ton of life left!

 

as a bodyman i find that the best option under a budget is fender flares and a little specialty coating. get flares and see how high they go up on the bedside, and work under that line. get a cleaning strip disk or wire weel take off all the bad, remember that whatever you see as a bubble is 4 times as big on the other side as rust goes. the por-15 kit is good, marine clean comes with it to clean off metal. Get all the rust you can off, then rust reformer, followed by rust encapsulator. YOU MUST DO THIS TO BOTH SIDES! the reason our bedsides rust is due to water and salt. getting between the plugwelds on the wheel arch. then follow up with some protective paint like por-15 or my personal preferance chassis saver. chassis saver works good because it dries rock hard and cant even be hammered off! chassis saver is made by magnet paints and you have to go online or find a local dealer they dont directly sell it. Eastwood.com will have rust reformer and encapsulator, they run deals all the time and are great value. walmart has black cleaning strip discs by 3m that work well, they wear and conform to grooves and curves your trying to strip. any questions?

 

nate's got it right on the head. Do that and you'll be set for a few years at least, then when the rust eventually creeps over your flares you will have to get a new bed or live with it. Unfortunate design flaw in our trucks.

 

i have this same problem, little bubbles for right now. awesome post nate, thanks