The only thing you need is a way to keep cool. We have relatives in Dallas, and they've been bothered with the oppressive hot weather for some while now.

The acid involvement is a small part of the project, time wise, three five minute sessions, maybe 15 mins total. There's no getting around it, without a respirator, the acid smell is bad. Once that's done, the liner application is very easy. 

With this hot weather, the liner material will dry quickly. You have an open window in which multiple coats can be applied. Depending on the material you have purchased, you can recoat before the previous coat has fully cured. All it needs is to be dry enough, that no transfer of the material will occur when you touch the surface. You may leave some marks when you walk on it. Just don't scuff the first surfaces, and stay off the final coat while it cures overnight. You'll be able to apply all three coats in one afternoon.

After you start, you'll see how quickly and easy the project progresses. When you look at your newly finished  flooring, you should be very pleased.

I wish you the best of luck in this and all of your future endeavors.

I was asked in a PM if the acid should be applied full strength or diluted. I used the acid full strength, poured directly from the container. Pour enough to cover about a third of a three horse trailer's floor. Making sure that the joints in the plank flooring were liberally covered with acid, the acid should be quickly spread evenly onto the flooring and agitated with the brush. This took about a quarter of the gallon container. After about a minute it will start bubbling, and it is then that the smell will start. Once the area is completely covered, leave.

After about five minutes return and inspect your work. The smell will have dissapated a bit, and the flooring will be covered with a dark coloured slurry. Reagitate and again evenly spread the applied mixture, adding more if you find dark coloured spots. Leave again. The next time you return in about five minutes, there will be no apparent activity of the acid. Lightly flush the area with water and treat the next section and then finally the last third the same way. You're now done with the respirator and offensive smell.

Liberally flush the flooring several times, especially all the joints and corners. Let it dry completely overnight.

I used a short nap roller to apply the liner material. I wanted a smooth surface instead of the texture normally found in truck beds. It is difficult not to track dirt inside the trailer when entering. I placed a door mat nearby, took off my sneakers and walked inside in stocking feet. This kept a clean area.

With some bed liners, you have a window before the liner material cures and it can be recoated. When it is dry to the touch and will not transfer any material to your fingertip, you can apply another coat. Depending on the weather, this may be in as short as an hour's time. If you keep a grocery store's plastic bag handy, you can wrap the roller and cover in it between coatings. This will prevent the coating from drying on the roller and having to replace it with each new coat. Using the bag, you will only need one cover for the whole project.

When you walk on the material, do not scrub or abrade the previous coat. Shoe soles will do this, socks won't. You can apply all three coats in an afternoon. Don't walk on or use the final coating until it fully cures; I gave it a day before I replaced the mats.

BOL

Thanks for that additional information.We're going to do at least one of our trailers this fall,perhaps two.

Keeping cool is the truth.There's no way Jose I'd even consider undertaking something like that right now.Heat indexes here in AR were 111 today,115 last week.I did good to just wash under mats in my 2H last week.(My mare just had to urinate in it on a trip.I am pretty fanatical about not leaving THAT on the floor.)

I can't wait to get my trailer floors coated.But Gard,I did see you mention on a thread the other day that you removed the mats in yours.I bet that is one more job getting them out,then,back IN after that bedliner is on the floor.

I was all set to purchase everything needed to coat my trailer floor, with the decision of which coating to use the only problem. In reading product reviews online, I got scared off the project - almost every review was less than encouraging for a variety of coatings. They cited impossible preps, thin tearing coatings, peeling, etc. Of course the reviews weren't talking about horse trailer floors - just truck beds - but if that many guys couldn't coat a truck bed I wondered how I could do a good job with my trailer.

Any thoughts?

If you've read that in my thread, I've made an error in my posting. Since I've installed the bed liner materials, my mats have not been removed from the trailers. After the liner was installed, I rolled the butt side of the mats onto the head side for flooring inspections every couple of weekends. When that showed no wear or problems, the inspections became less frequent until last year, when I only did it at the end of the season. Again the liner was intact and needed no additional maintenance. I flushed the flooring with a water hose, let it dry, and dropped the mat tails back into place. Cleaning the liner didn't even require a power washer.

I believe I've made several comments similar to "I'm glad I don't have to pull mats anymore"

You should read reviews of people who have installed the materials on trailer floors, which is a very different environment than truck beds. The liners are used in trucks for abrasion resistance to protect steel beds. The liner material is used in trailers, to protect the metal flooring from corrosion, caused by exposure to urine and manure.

The liners in the trucks are exposed to the hauling extremes of work related products. The bed liner in a trailer is protected by the floor mats, and has little abrasion issues. It is only used as a protective coating. The proper preparation of the flooring before the liner material is installed is paramount. Because these materials are a DIY installation, the products are only as reliable as the labours and skills of the person who applied it.

You are the only one, who can decide what is best for your equippment and its maintenance.

I had the previous trailer sprayed...and I thought I had the right fella doing the work. Acid wash, DTM primer, then spray liner applied. Lasted about 18 months...huge bubbles.

Then I did the new to me trailer, with gard's process.....18 months, just like the day I put it in

I bought a respirator....and the acid fumes still nearly killed me. I think that the hardest part of the job, the acid wash.

I removed the saddle racks and their floor to ceiling support bracket. I also removed the rear centre post with the butterfly latches for the rear doors. Removing the two hinged walls of the moveable tack area would have been difficult, so I left them installed.

When I acid washed the flooring, I pulled the tack walls to the back of the trailer and flush against the street side wall. With my second acid application, I coated the middle stall area and the flooring ahead of the forward tack wall, back to the wall's hinges. On my third and last application, I pushed the walls forward and against the street side wall, covering the windows of the last and middle stalls. This allowed me to complete the last, rear most flooring area, and left the wall to floor joint, that was previously covered by the tack walls, exposed.

To apply the acid, I used a broom sold for roofing applications. It is rectangular, short bristled, and about 4" x 10". It works well to physically scrub the acid onto the flooring, and spread the slurry evenly about. A regular broom is much too flexible and ineffective. The handle enters the brush at quite an angle, so if it is turned on its end and run flush along the wall, the bristles will easily reach the vertical areas of the lower sidewalls under the rubber. Acid transfered to the rubber wall coating, will not cause any damage and will later be rinsed off. If the brush is flushed with water after the acid application, it can be reused for other jobs as well. It will not be ruined by the acid and is an excellent tool to scrubs mats, sidewalls etc. Repurpose its handle for the paint roller.

When painting any tight areas, I used an inexpensive 4" "chip" brush to go around the base of the walls and onto the flooring a couple of inches or so, before starting to use the roller. It will work well for the corners that aren't accessable with a roller. I also use the brush to coat the threshold area of the top of the rear frame, and touch up some of the rusted screw heads of the sidewall rubber attaching hardware.

If you use the broom handle from the acid brush on your paint roller,  you can easily paint the rest of the flooring while standing. There is little or no odor from the bed liner material, so you will not have a need for the respirator once the acid application is finished. 

When we had our stock/combo trailer, the mats were generic but if mixed up in location, difficult to reinstall. Marking the edges with a piece of chaulk before they were removed, eased their subsequent installation.

Our two present trailers, have mats cut specificially for each area and are not interchangeable. The most difficult part of the reinstallation was the physical labour, which is no longer necessary.  BOL

I plan on amending some of the info in this thread and reposting it. Since I first presented the material a few years ago, some facts have changed. The application of the bed liner products and cleaning with acid hasn't, but the liner materials, availability and various pricing have.

http://www.horsetrailerworld.com/forum/thread-view.asp?threadid=12471&start=1