All right guys i have the greatest idea yet but I am not sure it will work... Please let me know what you think....
So Last night i was laying in bed thinking of how i could make my truck that much better and I came up with this...
My truck is going in to receive a linex bed liner, but I would really like the top rails of the box, and the tail gate linexed as well (all the black plastic trim on the bed), but the guy told me he can't take the trim off bc ford makes those stupid little lips in the body, but he told me he was going to lay tape down over any imperfections in my bed to make it look stock again, so my question to you is Could they just spay over the plastic and then it would solve my problem, and they wouldnt have to do custom work to get it on there?

 

You could have them spray the Line-X on the plasic bed rails, but you may have problems with chipping. Ford and other aftermarket companies sell aluminum bed rails that could easily be sprayed. Just be sure that they remove the bed rails from the bed and spray them off the truck, not installed on the truck. If they spray them on the truck, I don't think you will like how they look.

 

All right that is what i needed to know thanks!

 

The factory plastic rail caps are too flimsy. It would be OK to apply LINE-X to them if you could encapsulate them, but that won't work because they would not fit back onto your truck. As freekyFX4 mentioned, get the aftermarket aluminum caps.

 

my next question then is do you guys no of any good ones? I would like to retain the oem bed rail cap lines... If not no big deal but I was looking for some recomendations. Thanks

 

The problem with getting aftermarket aluminum caps is that they just go over the factory plastic caps and don't give complete coverage of the plastic cap.

He can however get Putco bedcaps and they are deisgned where you take the factory cap off and they go right back in place of them. The only problem here is the Putcos are depending on where you get them 2-3 times the price of a standard set of caps.

 

Why not keep the factory parts and when they get beat up replace them. If you can do any real damage to them you would have ended up denting the sheetmetal and the Line-X. Then if the factory parts get torn up, you can run to the yard and get some replacements - snap them in place and it will look like new again. That's the whole point of rails caps, they can be replaced.

 

I am mainly looking at getting the linex extended bc it the look i am going for but its sounding like i might not be able to do that very easily so I might just have to do some custom body work and smooth over the rails and tail gate to have it line-xed to match the factory look but with linex instead.

 

You haven't pulled the factory caps off yet have ya? That will be alot of bondo or fiberglass filler and alot of work to get the bedrail built up to look decent without the cap on and have something for the spray to stick to. There isn't hardly any metal to speak of under those factory caps it is full of holes and is just enough to support the cap.

 

Nope I have not looks like i might just have to stick to the stock look its not bad i was just really hoping this could be done.

 

Sorry, I didn't realize that Ford does not sell the diamond plate aluminum bed rails for the F150 like they do for the Super Duty.

These are the ones for the Super Duty:

Diamond Plate, Short Bed, W/Stake Holes
Part Number: F81Z-99291A40-CAA
MSRP: $150.34

Diamond Plate, Long Bed, w/Stake Holes
Part Number: F81Z-99291A40-DAA
MSRP: $156.36

They are not really too bad of a deal!

 

This leads to my question.. How are these rail caps attached to the body?.. Glued? Tabs?

I've never tried popping 'em off but I'd be sorely pissed off to find that the things are somehow glued in place..

Is this the case?

 

TABS......Lots and lots of tabs

 

Exactly just look up under the bedrail and you will see all the tabs, they are about every 8".