Home urq20v.com
Just like most of the body, the rocker panels are rusted. These photos show them just after the car was dismantled.
After my body man was finished, it wasn't much better. Actually it was worse.
Take a look at this weld. Is he insane? He didn't even cut out all of the rust.
Needless to say, I have to re-do this bodywork. I'm no expert, but I can do better than this.
To completely eliminate the rust and bad welding, I had to cut a hole that was on both sides of the verticle rocker seam.
Look at how this this bondo is.
The bottom arrow is pointing to the weld for the previous patch.
Why would you go through the trouble to replace only some of the rusted metal,
then make it toom short and have to use 1/2" of filler. Even with all that bondo,
the fender and rocker didn't meet. After I took a grinder to it, there was quite a gap.
There is no good way to fix this without cutting off the end and fabricating a new endcap.
Surpirse, Surprise...I grind through the filler only to find another rust hole. I guess I'll have to cut off more than I had planned.
Since I had to cut off the entire end of the rocker panel, I figured I should make a template of the rocker profile, to use to make the new piece.
Due to the complexity of this shape, I had to construct it using multiple pieces.
After test fitting (many times), I punched and or drilled a few holes for welds.
Prior to welding everything together, I treated them with the POR15 metal ready and spray the mating surfaces with some weld thru primer.
My welds aren't that pretty, but they are better than the bodyshop.
Hey, look at that, it fits up to the fender.
