Not a fun job getting the bed/tailgate rail caps off. But I wanted to make sure everything was OK underneath. Well they are not great. Lots of dirt, and some rust around stamped holes, and spot welds. Even some of the spot welds with no apparent rust, do have rust forming under the paint. It is just not visable until probed.

So I will be doing work to get things protected with primer/paint. I was thinking of using bed rail clear coat tape under the plastic caps. But have not decided to for sure. I was actually surprised at seeing this much rust. The truck has hardly any rust. But it was probably wet a lot, "Northwest weather".

 

It looks about as good as I would hope for a steel body truck with plastic caps hiding (and trapping) dirt, grime, and water for 13 years. It could be better if the caps had a watertight seal all around. They probably should. 13 years later in retrospect, it probably would have been good to remove the caps on day one of ownership and add weather stripping to them all around, to prevent intrusion of dust, dirt, water, and road grime. The weather stripping would need to be around the perimeter, as well as each through-hole since water could come up from the underside of the rail within the bed area too.

It kind of makes me want to pull the rails on my 2014, but it looks like a bigger job than I want to get into right now.

 

I was thinking of using this:

XPEL Clear Universal Bed Rail Guard ( 17' x 4") Paint Protection Film Kit

But I am worried it might be trapping moisture in the punched holes. I might just use the Xpel where the caps lay on the outside of the bed. I made a tool out of an existing trim tool I had. Each side took about a 1/2 hour to get off. Second side went a little faster. I messed up some of the tabs, but glued them with E6000 glue. If the rust is starting on some of the punched holes, you might be able to see them by lying on the bed looking up.

The left side rail was very dirty, but the right side was fairly clean? Maybe my truck lived outside for the most part? Who knows.