Matt's Old Cars.com

Driver's Side Quarter & Rocker Panels
Part 10 - Rocker Rust -- Rocker Cover Final Fitting

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February 15, 2004

It's been pretty cold lately but we had a break in the weather yesterday so I decided to press on with the rocker panel repairs.  Yesterday's task was to get the final fitting of the rocker cover done. I had it really close already but I still needed to to a little trimming where the new and old panels come together and make sure that it fit well against the existing car. Getting it trimmed wasn't a big deal. I think I spent about a half hour with the grinder to get it to fit. Making sure it fit well with the existing car, however, was another story.

Basically, the new cover is the right shape and all of the normally visible contours are very nice but the area where it kicks up behind the outer rocker panel (keep in mind, this is the middle panel) isn't bent up far enough which keeps the bottom flange from touching the inner panel. The curve from that part of the panel isn't as sharp as the factory part either but that's not that big of a problem (especially if you replace the entire panel).

The reason I'm making a big deal about this is that if you don't fix it, you'll end up with the top of the cover angled down instead of being flat and, even worse, the panel will not follow the contour of the front fender and real quarter panel without a ton of filler along the entire panel. It took me well over an hour to get this area pretty close but I'll have more work to do after the cover is welded on to get it to fit better.

After that, I clamped the cover in place (I used a screw to hold the top in place) and installed the door. The point of installing the door is to make sure that the cover doesn't hit and that the gap between it and the door is even. Here are a few pictures of the cover with the door installed.

In the next picture, you can see there's a gap between the rocker cover and the quarter panel. This is due to differences in how the original and replacement covers were made. I'll have to weld in a 1/2" x 3/4" patch to fill this in.

Up Next: Part 11 - Rocker Rust -- Happy Monday!

Last Updated 02/16/04 05:14:10 PM