Well I finally finished prepping my Jeep and installed a Durabak liner today. For me the prep was extensive and took many hours. When I removed my roll bar to begin the prep process I found lots of rust. My tub is in fairly good condition but it had rusted out completely behind the roll bar plates. I ended up cutting the rust out with a torch and made patch plates with 18 guage galvanized steel. I started to weld the plates in but found that it was easier and cleaner to just rivet them in (I am not a good welder). Once I had made the repairs I sanded the tub completely with 60 grit sandpaper this took a couple of hours. I decided that this would be a good time to freshen up my pedals and shift levers so I ended up sanding and painting them also. Before I started the Durabak I caulked all of the seams and cracks in my tub with Silicone. I don't recommend doing this because it appears that Durabak doesn't like to stick to silicone, it ended up ok once I coated it a couple of times. After caulking all of the seams I masked everything off and wiped the tub out with Xylene. Once the xylene was dry I began brushing on the Durabak it is a good idea to have someone help, I brushed the edges and my wife rolled the flat areas. I must say I was a little disappointed after the first coat. The surface wasn't very even and the color(Mud Brown) didn't look exactly like the sample. We waited a couple of hours and returned to do the second coat. This coat goes much faster and we were able to even out the first coat. The color also improved and I must say I am fairly satisfied with the product. I have some left over and will probably add some additional coats to the floorboards and bed. The surface is fairly rough and has a shiny appearance. It appears to have adhered well to the surface of my tub and did a good job of hiding blemishes and imperfections that were very noticeable before. I would say that with all of my prep time I probably have about 18 hours in this project. This includes removing everything from my interior(stubborn bolts), grinding rust scales on roll bar, patching the rust holes, prepping for Durabak , and installation of Durabak. In my opinion this was a lot of work, but my tub looks signifigantly better and all the steps I took will ensure that it will not rust away in the next few years(at least not from the inside out). I will probably get a new tub if I ever need to so 18 hours to restore this one is not that big a deal. Please let me know if you have any questions. I can't believe that you would considering that this message turned out to be a 10000 word essay.
Happy Jeepin'
1985 CJ7 4.2L, T-176, 2.73 gears(too high), 2.5" lift, 31" tires, Durabak
