Vinyl substitute?

[TomoHawk]

Would it be possible to substitute truck bedliner stuff for the vinyl in high-traffic area, likethe door sill? I think it might look good if the texture or color wasn't too rough or irregular.I can get a can of spray-on stuff and try it...

thx.

[DatsunZGuy]

This stuff works great!

[TomoHawk]

Do the auto stores carry that?

It looks like you need to spray some color on top to match the carpet or vinyl. It would be best to put on something that's got black in it already, so if it gets scuffed, the steel underneath won't show through.

thx

[DatsunZGuy]

Purchased mine via mail order. It sprays on clear and has a slight texture, but a satin finish. I sprayed this stuff on the black fairing on my motorcycle to prevent stone chips from the front wheel.

[TomoHawk]

Thanks for mentioning that stuff.

I think that's what I have on the rocker panels. I was thinking about spraying some on the bottoms of the back quarters behind the wheels where the road schmutz collects.

[EScanlon]

If it's the same stuff I recall using years ago, it is clear, but it ends up looking kind of cloudy-milky when it's dry.

It appears to be from the same 3M family of products, so this may be the same or slightly different formulation.

It was mostly sprayed on after the rocker panel already had been sprayed with the color of the car, sometimes they'd spray one quick coat on the top of the stuff to "even out" the color to the rest of the car, because of the slight color changing properties.

IIRC while you could shoot it with a regular paint gun, the rep recommended it be shot with a Body-Shutz style gun (i.e. syphon venturi). Can't recall what it was thinned with.

As a side note it's dried consistency is more like dried rubber cement...somewhat rubbery-soft, but nonetheless hard. Also kind of grabby like you would expect a rubber surface to be. So don't expect it to clean or wax like the rest of the car. (That was another reason for the "top-coat" of paint.)

That rocker panel spray that I used needed to be sprayed on rather thick to attain the true protection that car's were getting back then in the 80's. In fact, you had to be careful if you tried to get an even appearance as it didn't spray evenly very well at all. It's main selling point was that it basically gave you a rubberized coating to allow small rocks and pebbles to bounce off the rocker panel instead of chipping the paint.

Take your time when you paint it on and it should work out well for what you intend Tomo. Just be careful of how you mask off the rest of the panel so you don't end up with a distinct cut -off line. This is where a masking tape line can actually work against you, and you would need to have very careful control of your paint gun to maintain an even line without the tape. Unless you have a body line against which you can hide the cut-off line.

FWIW

E

[ktm]

How about just using POR-15 flat/satin finish?

[TomoHawk]

I tried some of the Truck bedliner spray stuff (Duplicolor Truck Bed Coating) on a sample piece of aluminum sheet. I sanded it with some 200 grit, then used the wax & grease remover, then sprayed the material.

I would expect it to take a while to set up; I let it set up, slowly, in the cooler basement (about 65-70F) and then moved it to the warm upstairs level of the house (about 72-75F) to harden, but how long should it take to get hard, and how hard should I expect it to get? Since I'm using this on the door sill guards, it hould not easily scuff or scratch with a fingernail?

thx

[BRE-240Z]

I would expect it to take a while to set up; I let it set up, slowly, in the cooler basement (about 65-70F) and then moved it to the warm upstairs level of the house (about 72-75F) to harden, but how long should it take to get hard, and how hard should I expect it to get? Since I'm using this on the door sill guards, it hould not easily scuff or scratch with a fingernail?

What did it say on the can?

[TomoHawk]

There is no information on the can to tell you what to expect except " It provides a durable, skid-resistant barrier."

The Product web Page says it should dry to the touch in 30 minutes ( it took a whole day) and a full cure in 24 hours. It's been almost two weeks so far, and you can still press your fingernail into the stuff. If I had a hotbox, or it was warm outside, I'd put in the back window of the car. That should be warm enough to cure it.

UPDATE: A call to Duplicolor tells me that the product wasn't designed to be a permanent & hard coating, like the urethane bedliner material is. It's supposed to be a semi-tough coating for scuff & abrasion resistance. Also, the spray can product is supposed to take up to 7 days to cure.

That means you could probably use it for door sills, but you might have to repaint it or touch it up, as it might get scuffed from dragging your feet over it.

The only alternative I see would be to find a shop that does spray-on truck bedliners, and to see if you could get them to coat your stuff while they do some truck beds.

thx

[troubledz]

Tomohawk,

I just order some urethane bed-liner (raptorliner) to spray on my floor boards on the inside of the car.I just recently installed new floor pans.Instead of buying the sound deadener sheets, I talk to one of my jobbers and asked if this stuff would be good as a sound deadener.

I talked to a few shops that install this urethane truck bed-liner and they said it is a very good sound deadener.. and it is tintable.. so can make it any colour you want.

You might want to look for this stuff as it might be a good choice as it drys rock hard..

Hope this helps..

[TomoHawk]

Yeah, but I'll only really need a few ounces to do the two sill pieces.

You don't really want the car to be too quiet- you want to be able to hear traffic around you, especially when emergency vehicles are coming.