bed rails

[crewcabshorty]

hello all, I just picked up a set of bed rails for my short bed . I was wondering if they were a factory option from 73 to 87 long bed and short bed ? Mine need restored, does anybody reproduce the wood grain tape for them ? The ends need rechromed . just wondering if somebody specializes in restoring them ?

[RShook]

I found that this wood grain tape works very well on the bed rails. I think the pattern I used is MW6269. It's a little too wide but you can stick the bottom down to the lip of the rail and rub it down and then razor off the excess against the top lip. It comes in 25' lengths and should do 4 short box rails.
Ebay Link

As far as the ends needing to be re-chromed, I'm afraid it's going to be rather expensive if you get it done right. They're made of what they call pot metal and it costs to get that stuff re-chromed
I contacted Paul's Chrome about getting some chromed and they estimated about 85 bucks for each piece. They couldn't give a definite quote until they looked at them.

I ended up buying a set in pretty bad shape but the ends were not pitted. I took oven cleaner to the rails to get the anodizing off and then polished the aluminum to get a fairly good look. I'm still not finished with them but they're coming along.
Here are a few pics of one temporarily mounted with only one screw in each stand. Need to do a little more polishing on the center posts and this side is finished. You can see the grain in the tape good on a couple of these.
Hope this helps you some