Regarding my bare metal restoration described elsewhere: After epoxy and body schutz and epoxy I was thinking of bed liner followed by car color on the underside and wheel wells. Clear stone guard after that for the wheel wells.

Is there a better way to seal things up? Of course it is unlikely that the car will sit out in the rain for 20 years again, but still.

Somewhere I read a post saying that they didn't like the bed liner because it hides too much. Is this a common concern? Again, is there a better way?

Thanks
Warren

I’d be curious of peoples long term experience with bedliner on the underside. I would expect that the underside is much more exposed to harsher chemicals than when inside a truck bed. The PO sprayed my six trunk compartment with what looks and feels like bedliner - I’m not exactly sure to be honest what it is, but it’s my best guess.

When trying to expose the body chassis stamp I noticed how easily aerosol spray aircraft stripper and acetone immediately broke apart and removed the stuff in my trunk. When trying to strip the wheel wells in my 75, neither of those did squat to the ages old factory crap….

If you look at my build thread you will see that I used monsta liner and raptor on my car. I would do it 100% again. The monsta liner is far far superior to raptor. It's is sold by magnet paints. Love it.

I also used tinted Raptor on mine and think it was one of the best decisions I made. I only have 3,000 miles on the resto so far but have not been shy at all about driving the car in rain. Also, every trip from my house includes 6 miles of nasty gravel roads so the bed liner has gotten a lot of abuse in those 3K miles. The stuff is tough as nails and also sheds dirt like teflon.

The only negative thing I'll say about it is that I have a few spots where the bedliner was sprayed just a little thin over welding seams which have cracked open and will require going in with a more flexible sealant to keep moisture out.

Having followed build threads of members above, I am thinking of using the bed liner option on my build too but was considering rolling it on, lack of proper equipment and setup to spray...

See it done on YouTube...

As for “hiding”, I don’t plan on ever selling my car

I've got 2 coats of rubberized Herculiner on the underside and wheelwells. I was thinking about a harder substance for the inside that would protect my new floors and be easy to clean. And I also want to roll it on like I did on the bottom...have you seen a better product like that rolled on?

Painted Herculiner under mine as well....

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I second the Herculiner, going on 10 years and it's holding up great. Just leave it black.

Was this rolled or sprayed on? Thanks!

Rolled and brushed... Its pretty forgivable. Some of what you see.... the gloss part... is just paint of course.

@slowrodent wow that is nice!
Will this also help like a sound deadener?

Most aftermarket bedliners offer a tintable option

I’ve got two project 914s that PO’s have added bedliner type products to and both are coming off in sheets. I know it was probably poor prep, but this is why I’m leery of it. I’ll be addressing those cars in time. I do like the idea though and need to make a decision soon for the current car I’m working on, so I’m glad to hear the latest options.


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Not on my 914
But I had Linex sprayed in the bed and in the rear wheelwells of my 2010 F150.
12 years of PA salt in winter and 130K miles, it's still holding up just fine.

Mine has a LineX product with Kevlar in it. I like it. It does hide all the work I did in the wheelwells, but I'm happy It cleans up real easy too

Beware of plugging weep holes and drains in the sills, rear suspension mounts, etc.

Anyone have experience with Durabak? I saw a Project Farm video where it outperformed the others considerably.

I used Durabak on my enclosed trailer floor & ramp - it worked very well.

I would say that the sound deadening properties of Herculiner are probably minimal, but I'm not certain...

Good point. Maybe put a wire or tube in prior to spray whatever I use.

I am voting for the factory treatment, paint only.

A currently restored car is probably going to outlast all of us.

I used this for over 10 years, love it!

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We must remember, when our 914's were new they were somewhat disposable being an entry level and also made by VW. Ans many have still lasted 50 years. Given the level of restoration many of us are doing here and limited usage they will probably last anothet 100 years

I don't know enough to say one way is better than another but here's what I did. I used 3M paintable undercoating and then painted with PPG 2-stage paint (L30E - bahia red). Very happy with the results! Still have the red overspray on my garage floor too!

Note: I also used this undercoating to re-texture my Targa top. That worked out great as well.

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Looks great, was it sanded to smooth?

930cabman,

Not really. I block sanded it down but not totally smooth (see pic). I remember shooting the undercoating over cardboard to test it all out. I found if I stood back just bit and lightly trigger the gun, I could control how much texture was hitting the top. I actually found it very easy to do and it didn't take much time. Even though this undercoating is black, you're not spraying it on like paint. The final step was to paint it with a single stage satin black that closely matched the sail vinyl.

Here's the top prep'd for texturing. I did use a very small amount of body filler in a few places to fill a few spots.
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Here it is after texture was lightly applied and before painting.
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Prior to applying the bedliner, is the bare metal being primed? If so, what do you recommend? I've always used POR-15 on bare metal, better suggestions?

This was the step before the undercoating process. I researched this a good bit. I think you could probably get a way with just scuffing the POR-15 before applying the bedliner. However, I decided to scuff the POR-15 and then use their POR-15 primer.