How to Bedliner Your Side-by-Side
We're updating our 12,000-mile project 2019 Can-Am Defender HD8! This is how to bedline your side-by-side, from prep to spray. For more on our workhorse, check out UTVDriver.com, and be sure to follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
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After our trip to Marshall, Texas, to visit the crew at Thumper Fab, our 12,000-mile 2019 Can-Am Defender HD8 was wearing a spate of new parts. All that gorgeous black powdercoat only served to highlight just how hammered the rest of the rig is, with a faded and cracked bed and dinky factory wheels and tires. We considered a few options to solve that first problem, from new bed panels to vinyl wraps, but finally settled on bedlining the old plastic components.
To be clear: This is an experiment. When we called our local Line-X to get their opinion on spraying a UTV bed, they said they wouldn’t touch the machine because they’ve had adhesion problems in the past. That didn’t worry me too much knowing that our bed won’t see the kind of abuse a pickup typically endures. At worst, our Defender will need to move some photography gear and a cooler, and survive the occasional tree branch. With that in mind, we snagged a cheap bedliner kit from our local parts store and got to work.
You can check out our how-to video below. The project took the better part of a day, but made a massive difference in how the machine looks, and for a fraction of the cost of new panels. Even used bedsides in passable condition start at around $200, and replacing the entire bed will set you back closer to $800. Even with supplies, bedlining our Defender set us back less than $200. Not bad.
Full story here: https://utvdriver.com/story/utv-maintenance/how-to-bedline-can-am-defender-hd8-project-build-video/
Note: Amazon has the same kit we used for around $210 bucks. Call your local parts store. We found our kit for closer to $150 locally.
Bedliner Kit: https://tinyurl.com/mspy3f5x
Adhesion Promoter: https://tinyurl.com/23t2988w
For more stories, reviews, and first-looks check out https://www.utvdriver.com/
Want to see even more shenanigans from the UTV Driver team? Give us a like and follow:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/UTVdriver/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/utvdrivermagazine/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/utvdriver/
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After our trip to Marshall, Texas, to visit the crew at Thumper Fab, our 12,000-mile 2019 Can-Am Defender HD8 was wearing a spate of new parts. All that gorgeous black powdercoat only served to highlight just how hammered the rest of the rig is, with a faded and cracked bed and dinky factory wheels and tires. We considered a few options to solve that first problem, from new bed panels to vinyl wraps, but finally settled on bedlining the old plastic components.
To be clear: This is an experiment. When we called our local Line-X to get their opinion on spraying a UTV bed, they said they wouldn’t touch the machine because they’ve had adhesion problems in the past. That didn’t worry me too much knowing that our bed won’t see the kind of abuse a pickup typically endures. At worst, our Defender will need to move some photography gear and a cooler, and survive the occasional tree branch. With that in mind, we snagged a cheap bedliner kit from our local parts store and got to work.
You can check out our how-to video below. The project took the better part of a day, but made a massive difference in how the machine looks, and for a fraction of the cost of new panels. Even used bedsides in passable condition start at around $200, and replacing the entire bed will set you back closer to $800. Even with supplies, bedlining our Defender set us back less than $200. Not bad.
Full story here: https://utvdriver.com/story/utv-maintenance/how-to-bedline-can-am-defender-hd8-project-build-video/
Note: Amazon has the same kit we used for around $210 bucks. Call your local parts store. We found our kit for closer to $150 locally.
Bedliner Kit: https://tinyurl.com/mspy3f5x
Adhesion Promoter: https://tinyurl.com/23t2988w
For more stories, reviews, and first-looks check out https://www.utvdriver.com/
Want to see even more shenanigans from the UTV Driver team? Give us a like and follow:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/UTVdriver/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/utvdrivermagazine/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/utvdriver/
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SportsTranscript
00:00 What is up? Already hot and sticky here in the shop.
00:04 You may notice our Can-Am Defender is sitting here.
00:10 It has all sorts of cool parts on it now, but still kind of looks terrible.
00:14 We're in the midst of freshening the thing up a little bit.
00:19 I've been thinking about this for a while, and I think we're going to bedline the bed.
00:26 Because it looks a little hammered, and it sort of detracts from the whole thing.
00:34 So we picked up a kit. It has all sorts of fun stuff in it. I'll show that to you.
00:40 The kit's got everything you need. Instructions, it's got an undercoat gun,
00:45 it's got the actual coating itself, and a catalyst.
00:52 And it turns out pretty good. We did a test panel on the side, and it seems pretty durable.
01:01 We used an adhesion promoter, and I think we'll just sort of go through the process of what this looks like.
01:08 So here we go.
01:10 So the first thing is to get the panels as clean as possible, and that includes getting any decals off.
01:18 We still have remnants of the old 3M decals. I'm just using an old card.
01:27 This stuff should come off. This is just goo off.
01:32 Any adhesive remover. 3M makes pretty good stuff, but this is just the crap you get at any auto parts store.
01:43 Yeah, it's taking it right off.
01:45 So obviously the biggest thing is you want a good surface, right?
01:51 And that means a surface as clean as possible, free of contaminants.
01:56 So we'll get all of this fun stuff off. We'll give it a bath.
02:00 We'll probably hit it with some sort of decontaminator and go from there.
02:07 [water splashing]
02:09 [thunder]
02:14 [water running]
02:29 All right, so after the wash is done, it's time for surface prep.
02:35 So decals came off. Little stuff like this. Don't worry about it.
02:39 The great part about bed liner is it hides a lot of sins.
02:44 Anything that's kind of sticking proud, just take a knife, clean it up a little bit.
02:51 [sanding noises]
02:55 Once that stuff's off there, start sanding.
02:59 All right, next up is sanding.
03:02 [sanding noises]
03:05 The kit says prep everything with a 60 grit, which is pretty aggressive.
03:09 So just don't linger too long.
03:12 [sanding noises]
03:17 All right, you should have something like this if you get the first pass with the orbital.
03:22 If you don't have an orbital, no big deal.
03:24 You know, just scuff it up with some regular sandpaper.
03:27 We're going to do anywhere that we can't get the orbital into
03:33 because we need everything nice and roughed up so we'll get good adhesion.
03:37 [music]
03:52 All right, so good rule of thumb, anywhere that was shiny you want not shiny.
03:57 So, um, that seems counterintuitive, but there you go.
04:00 So now that it's all scuffed up, we will clean it up with some rubbing alcohol first
04:06 just to get any of the leftover contaminants off
04:09 and then maybe hit it with some eraser and then dry everything off and move to prep.
04:15 All right, so when you're done, you get something like this.
04:20 Biggest thing, you want to make sure it's super dry. Wet, dry, wet, dry.
04:24 Let it sit for a little bit. Be patient. The patient's going to be your friend with this thing.
04:30 And once you're done with that, move over to your plastic adhesion promoter.
04:37 This stuff is primarily used for painting bumpers, that sort of thing,
04:41 which, you know, is more or less what we're doing.
04:44 So Dupli-Color makes fine stuff. We're not sponsored by any of them.
04:50 You'll spray this whole thing down two or three times,
04:53 and then you'll be ready to actually shoot some leather.
04:58 [spraying]
05:06 All right, so you've got two parts here.
05:09 You've got the actual coating and then you've got the catalyst,
05:14 and it works like epoxy where you mix the two.
05:16 It comes with a mix cup. Eight ounces goes in the coating, and you're ready to spray.
05:25 All right, shake for two minutes or, you know, close, and then gun goes in the top.
05:34 The gun that comes with looks like this.
05:39 We added a cheap Harbor Freight air regulator.
05:44 We're shooting about 14 psi.
05:47 Follow the instructions to figure out what you should be shooting at.
05:52 All right, give it a little test spray.
05:56 About here.
06:01 Make sure it's nice and light, and you'll come back and hit a little bit heavier.
06:04 [spraying]
06:07 All right, so remember when I said patience is your friend?
06:11 It'd take about 20 minutes between coats.
06:14 If you're not careful, when you get a little carried away, you'll get heavy like I did,
06:19 but that's not the biggest deal in the world.
06:21 And as you can see, where our little scuffs were, they sort of go away, which is nice.
06:29 I'm kind of stuck to it.
06:31 Yeah, that's it.
06:33 So we'll wait 20 minutes and give it another coat.
06:38 All right, just got finished laying the final coat.
06:41 Sprayed from, you know, a little bit away to get a little bit finer texture,
06:47 and I think it looks pretty good.
06:48 So we're going to keep going.
06:51 You know, the original plan was just to do the bed sides because they were so hammered looking,
06:54 and I think we're going to do the tailgate, which I've already started prepping.
07:02 We've got a little bit of a hole here, so we're going to epoxy that up real quick so that looks okay,
07:07 and then move on to the rest of the bed.
07:10 Yee-haw.
07:13 So obviously it is no longer hot and sticky in the shop.
07:17 It's, I don't know, I'd say about a month later, getting into November, things are chilling down.
07:23 The cool part is the bed liner is holding up absolutely excellent.
07:29 You know, there was some concern from a bunch of people that the bed liner just wouldn't stick to the plastic,
07:37 especially pretty abused plastic.
07:41 No problem. Let's walk around it.
07:45 So obviously we've done more than just the bed liner.
07:50 We've got the Thumper bed rack on here finally, which was huge for a recent feature we did.
07:58 We had, it was like 500 pounds worth of crap stuffed in the bed of the thing.
08:03 Let's take a look at the bed liner.
08:06 So it cleans up well. All this stuff was covered in Windrock slush.
08:11 [loud wind noise]
08:15 [laughing]
08:17 We had two cracked panels.
08:20 We had the holes here. All of those filled out great.
08:24 I still haven't touched up the latch.
08:28 But as you can see, you know, the bed just does what the bed needs to do.
08:33 Everything's kind of staying in place, which is what we want.
08:37 Looks great. Super easy update.
08:43 I'd say we're in it for about $160, somewhere around there.
08:47 By the time you get all your supplies and the stuff to clean the guns, Xylene, all the rest of that stuff, you're good to go.
08:52 But yeah, man, look at her. Like a million bucks.
08:57 This has become one of our favorite rigs, in part because you've actually got to sort of try to wield the thing.
09:04 You know, it's not like an X3 where you just point it at whatever and it just does exactly what you want.
09:10 Yeah, it's fun. It's capable. It's a workhorse.
09:17 And the fact that it had 12,000 miles on it when we bought it for 2019, that's insane.
09:23 We'll take a look at how we got those 32s on there without doing front control arms.
09:30 Wasn't easy. Isn't perfect. But you know what is.
09:36 So thanks for watching. Hope you found it at least a little useful.
09:41 Obviously we didn't go through all the steps that you need to do, but at least gives you the baseline of what you need to bedline the bed on your Can-Am Defender or similar.
09:51 You know, should work for any utility rig, any of the old guys that are sitting out there that are sunbaked.
09:58 Thanks for watching. If you like this, check out UTPdriver.com.
10:03 Follow us on social media. Subscribe. If you like the stuff, want to see more wrenching videos, just let us know in the comments.
10:10 Cool. Thanks, guys.