diy jeep wrangler herculiner mod

If you have not yet heard of Herculiner, it’s a diy brush/spray on bed liner. it’s a great way to protect the bed of a truck or in my case the tub of my jeep wrangler. the stuff is pretty durable for an inexpensive diy kit. I originally did this mod on April 10th, 2004. i must say the Herculiner really has held up very well. one day this summer I think i will just touch up the floorboards in the drivers and passengers area with a fresh coat. this time I will also apply a UV top coat to protect the finish a bit. over the years the finish has dulled slightly – but it’s not bad at all. i highly recommend this project. it took probably 18 hours over the course of 3 days. i personally opted to spray the Herculiner on instead of rolling it. i feel that the outcome was well worth the spraying. it seemed to give me a much better even coat.

here is what i did:

1. i took everything out (carpet, seats, seat belts, doors, center console, everything!)

2. I then used the green scrubby that came in the kit and started to scrub for about 10 mins.

3. threw away scrubby (would have taken forever)

4. instead I broke out a bunch of sandpaper (150 grit) and started hand sanding the bed/tub.

5. sanded and sanded and guess what i sanded some more (you need to remove the gloss on the paint)

6. blew out the tub with compressor (dust or dirt are not our friends)

7. cleaned tub 3 times with soap and water (clean very well)

8 . repeated steps 5 – 7 again where i felt needed it (yup I am a glutton for punishment )

9. masked Jeep with and Blue Painters Tape (take your time here)

10. covered Jeep with visqueen (be patient this along with #9 takes a butt load of time to do it right.)

11. I hit all surfaces with XYLENE and some clean rags 2x

12. rubbed surfaces with a separate clean dry cloth

13. used a tack cloth to make sure everything was clean

14. cleaned the entire jeep bed/tub again with XYLENE once more

15. let dry 5-10 minutes

16. fought hard to open the Herculiner can…

17. used drill attachment mixer to mix the herc up

18. filled 2 bottles with herc

19. attached bottle to Undercoating Gun (bought from harbor freight, but they are hard to find these days…)

20. set compressor to 45 psi (recommended by Herculiner)

21. started to spray

22. increased to about 55 psi (better for me)

23. sprayed 2 coats nice and thick 20 mins cure time for me (90 degrees and 97% humidity today so it dried quick for me)

24. went to pep boys and bought another quart

25. sprayed last quart

26. tore all the masking and visqueen off

27. touched up with a brush and roller in certain spots.

28. marveled at how awesome it came out

29. had the guys on the block check it out

30. smiled when I saw how impressed they were.

31. started to reattach some minor stuff (seat belts etc after an hour)

32. let dry for 12+ hours

33. started to reassemble the Jeep.

here are a couple nice tips:

1. take your time – take your time – take your time

2. instead of putting tape in holes I used a grease gun and filled all the holes with grease. (worked great, just used a screw driver to poke through the herc after I was done)

3. if herc pools up, use a terry cloth towel and dab it up.

4. wear a couple sets of gloves on top of each other (i used 2 sets of nitrile rubber gloves) if this stuff gets on your skin, it takes about a week or more to come off.

5. use clothing you never want to wear anymore.

6. be careful for over-spray, i got some on my driveway (slight misting) and it’s still there years later.

7. BE CAREFULL WHEN REMOVING SEAT BELTS, THREE OF THEM COMPLETELY RETRACTED AND LOCKED UP ON ME… WE HAD TO CAREFULLY TAKE THEM APART FIX THEM AND RERIVIT THEM. IF YOU ARE GOING TO TAKE THE BELTS OFF THE JEEP MAKE SURE YOU CLAMP THE BELT OR USE CABLE TIES SO THE BELT DOESN’T RETRACT.