1st Gen camper shell buying info

I got very lucky finding a shell about 2 weeks after I bought my AC only about 50 minutes from and even a very close to correct color. Recently have seen a handful pop up on marketplace, if you're willing to drive set the distance to the max and move the location around on marketplace.

 

Let’s see so pics… we like pics around here

 

Yeah I have looked out several hundred miles from me but problem is getting there to check it out before it sells.

 

You’ll spend months searching and will eventually find one. THEN, you’ll check one day later and there will be a ton all over then place. That’s why we post them here when we find them.

 

Long bed in KS

 

$600 for a fairly nice looking blue DC Leer 100R. I think it’s about $200 high, but …

 

This one is down to 1K now. Still too much $$$

 

Yeah, anything that's obnoxiously priced, I typically don't bother posting it anymore. That's a $400 shell, tops. The price is absurd.

 

Think they are finding that out as it started at 1.5 then 1.2 and now 1k

 

Has anyone recently got a shell repainted to match their truck body lately and is $350-$550 still the price to expect to pay for this? And will a Leer authorized seller/dealer do this for older 2nd hand bought, or is typical a body shop the better option? Might start calling around locally for some of these answers on prices soon as I casually start searching for one.

 

I think a body shop is your best bet. Not sure a dealer would mess with painting one.

 

Leer dealer chain nearest me won't touch it. They gave me a paint shop north of ATL that supposedly was doing it for $400 back (in 2023?) when I got the shell.

 

I bought mine for $600, listed for $800, with good glass, seals, and latches. But I would pay slightly more to have a high-top one. Toppers for our trucks seem to get hit with the Toyota tax.

 

A lot of people on YT are spraying bedliner on themselves.

 

I thought about doing the bedliner thing. Honestly it’d probably be cheaper for me just to wrap it.

 

Yeah when I find one if not the right color I will wrap or bedliner it.

 

I might be able to stomach that if I find a sold shell thats not terribly far, could be worth it. I have a friend who owns a shop so I should check with him too. I also wouldn't mind just a matte black painted topper to go with my Desert Sand (beige) or that bed liner option--sounds like a potential solution for any mismatched colored toppers out there.

 

Check out durabek. They have a roll on bedliner that you can also spray. It's a great diy option. I rolled my bedliner on last summer. It's held up great through the first firewood hauling season and everything else I've thrown at it. You can get it with texture or smooth. Their sand color might be a pretty close match. Pretty sure you can get a few sample chips as well before you go all in.

https://www.durabakcompany.com/collections/bed-liner

 

That roll on they have looks like a good option. You have to go with the textured though to get the UV. How is yours holding up as far as fading?

 

When I was hunting for a shell I called a couple body shops to get a quote on paint, since my search would have been far easier if the color didn't matter. No one had any interest in painting a shell.

 

I work next door to a macco. I have seen them do a few.

 

I plan to spray my mismatched topper with Raptor liner tinted with color matched paint this spring. Total should be around $250. I'll pop the windows out and even pull the rear glass so I don't have to deal with masking (plus new butyl seals around the windows wont hurt). I've used Raptor liner on a few projects and my most recent one was an enclosed offroad camping trailer. This stuff sticks well to a well prepared surface and can handle some abuse. I like to run the applicator gun around 90psi (well above the recommended 45psi) to get a finely textured surface that doesn't hold onto dirt and crud.

This is a very close view of the texture on one of my trailer panels. The color on this is GM Charcoal Metallic. From 20' away it looks like a painted surface. I believe this will be a nice texture for my cap, only in Toyota Tundercloud gray (or whatever name the gray is on my DC).

 

I'd love to do this with mine, but sadly don't have the resources. And I'm oblivious on how to get the right colormatch with Raptor products. I've seen others Raptor their trucks, racks, and shells and I gotta say, it looks better than any other product and legit seems to hold up better than the others,

 

If you have an air compressor and the space to set up you can shoot Raptor. I always spray this stuff outdoors, setup on sawhorses in the yard.

Most kits include the gun needed. I have been buying my Raptor products from TCP Global for almost 15 years. My favorite part about Raptor is the ability to tune in the texture. Most roll on and other sprays are so thick the texture ends up quite rough by design. This cap will be my first experience actually trying to color match. The process seems simple enough, add up to 10% color to the Raptor bottle and spray, but I'll be sure to share my experience here.

 

Pancake only. Sold off my other compressors, welder, plasma ~5yrs ago now because I used them all so infrequently it didn't make sense to keep.

To boot, not much yard to work in @ 1/6th acre. My only flat surface is a driveway shared with multiple others, so I can't block it.

Definitely not an ideal situation, resources are lacking. I can't wait to get back out of the city again. Gotta finish pushing the kids through school.

 

https://vimeo.com/591223390
spoiler, Durabak won
Project Farm - Best Bed Liner

 

I sprayed my raptor bed liner with a small compressor without much issue. Just had to stop periodically to allow compressor to catch up.

 

I don't think we have any of those around here

 

Thanks, just scrolled thru some of the reviews and pictures on the smooth one--some of them don't look bad at all. I kind of like the idea of a smooth black topper look to go with the desert sand truck paint along with painting the chrome side trim to black, and eventually black rims.