OEM Rocker Replacement

Anyone do this lately? I got mine from NAPA. The panel is more extensive that I thought. It seems I might have to remove the doors to weld it to the A and B pillar, as well, I'd have to remove some interior trim and rubber since there is a lip 90 degress to the tread plate area which I guess is welded...

Cross section:

. . .__| <- lip 90o to sill plate
. _|
. \
. .\___
. . . . .| <- pinch seam

From the top, look down at the door sill:

` `______` ` ` ` __________
__|XXXXX|____|XXXXXXXXXX|__ Front
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX


Half thinking about cutting off that lip and part of the tread area and slipping the whole thing underneath, saving some hassle.

Any thoughts, experience?

Plus, I was going to plug weld mostly, might use some rivets etc. Where panels meet, is there any kind of product that can be used to help seal them?

BTW, if you want to keep your rockers, you might try remove the plastic tread plate and misting some rust inhibitor through the screw holes every year. Also, the back of the rocker is not sealed near the rear wheel. If you go in the wheel well and sneak around the inneer flare, you could probably get some in there too. I think that's where mine started. There looks to be drain "slots" at the pinch seem which could probably be used to get some inhibitor in there..

Now that I size it up some more, it looks like it's meant to not replace the entire original rocker. The original one spans from front to rear and ties into the A & B pillar, and the rear door opening. I thought I had to remove that but I think that would bea bad idea. The new's doesn't have a complete sill plate. It's cut out to go around the pillars.

Looks like it's meant to either go over or under (prob over) the existing rockers (or what's left). I think I'll cut right where the lower black paint meets the truck's red, right where the door bottom meets. I'll overlap an inch or so. Might not even weld, just rivet...

If anyone knows for sure how this panel should go in,please chime in!!

Thanks,

I was gonna do mine the right way, but as you mention it does involve the pillars. That was way to much for me to get involved in seeing as I had to do all the work outdoors and it was getting pretty chilly here in NH.
I opted to cover the old rockers with the new ones, with a little work you can get a real good fit. I covered everything with Zero Rust, a couple of coats, then bed linered it all.
I tried welding them in but blew to many holes, so changed to rivets, think they were 3/16" stainless rivets. It turned out to be a very strong repair but if I had to do it again I would prob. just replace the rockers with box tubing.

Ok thanks. Good thing is it looks like the plastic sill plates can hide some of the rivets and seams. I think most of the stength is still in the remaining part of the rocker, so this is mostly cosmetic. Will try plug welds on the pinch seam.

I think I'll also prime and use cheap rattle can bedliner on the inside. Plus, I'm gonna throw some rust check in there from time to time!!

Originally I had primed and undercoated them, inside and out. Started to rust in less than a year, thats when I removed them again and used Zero Rust on all the surfaces, inside and out, the same with the bedliner.

I wondered too if Grand Cherokee plastic rocker trim could but trimmed to fit... I notice a lot of new vehicles have plastic rocker trim which certainly cuts out cosmetic problems.

I don't know if I would want to put plastic over the metal. The bottom of all my doors rusted/rotted real bad. When I went to repair this condition and had to remove the trim pieces I found that they can trap moisture behind them along with very fine sand, I figure this is what led to my doors rotting out so bad. I bedlinered from the rockers up to the first body line on the doors.

it kind of sucks that my cardomain website is down, because I had the same thing done on my jeep. These big rockers are actually better, u can have them installed almost seamlessly, most people who look are like "no you didn't have rockers put on there". You can weld them on up under the weather seals (after pulling the seals back of course), and then bring the seals down. My friend never had never had trouble with burn through. What we did is the rockers were only REALLY bad along the bottom so we kept

. . .__|< you weld at this curve (it will be hidden by the weather strips)
. _|< plug weld here

that much of the old rocker, plug weled the new ones ontop of the old ones and then made custom backer plates to replace the old ones that were rotted out. Up here that is quite common. The only thing that didn't go according to plan with my rockers is that we had to fab the last 2 inches of it in the back with sheet metal and plastic. It came out DAMN good though. As long as u have the welder set right (I'm not a welder so I forget what he had the speed and heat set for) but we didn't have a single burn through, and they went in just about as neat as factory.
I'll give u the cardomain link once their site is back up.

I could weld mine on the top but not the bottom, to much rust, that is where I was burning through, I just riveted the bottoms to the backer with an. extra piece of metal so the rivet went thru the rocker,backer and finally the extra piece of metal. With a little time you can make a functional and cosmetically pleasing repair.

have a look at my cardomain site now, www.cardomain.com/id/the_bandit87
I forget what page I have it on, but its there.