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Rocker panel replacement

A

abrahamfh

Active Member
Has anyone replaced a rocker panel without having first removed the quarter panel? If anyone has, please chime in and help a member out with some details of how it was done. :gs :roul :skul

Thanks in advance
 
I replaced the full rocker panel but I had replaced the quarter first. It just panned out that way but I don't see why you would need to remove the quarter. The biggest pain will be to free the quarter from the rocker because the tabs that are welded between the two are not the easiest to get to. After drilling a lot of spot welds, a few sawzall blades, and the use of a BFH, the rocker will be out:

574-231110195724.jpeg


Then with the use of a floor jack and a lot of clamps, it pretty much goes back in the way it came out. Just a few words of wisdom...make sure you measure the new rocker and compare it to the old one. Mine was welded incorrectly where it was too short. I had to remove the front extension portion and move it out to the correct location before welding everything back together. Unfortunately, I didn't take very many pictures of the process.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Your explanation was more than enough, but the photograph helped a lot as well, thank you. I am going to try and see if I can just cut out the bad section and cut out the matching piece from the rocker I got from RPS earlier this week.

photo4cutout_edit.jpg


I shall know more by tomorrow early AM. Worst case, I will use my cut off wheel to remove as much of the existing rocker panel and then attack the spot welds. FUN FUN FUN! :yah :roul
 
I ended up replacing the whole thing because by the time I cut out all of the rusty areas, there wouldn't have been a whole lot left and it would have taken 10 times longer patching in all of the spots that were rotted out.
 
I don't know how accurate the stampings are on the Mustang rockers, but on my chebbie I spliced in a section of the rocker panel and was dissappointed to see that the profile of the replacement did not quite match the original. I think it would be better to just replace the whole thing. Be sure to brace everything up as if it were a convertible and you should be fine. To seperate it from the lower quarter, cut off the face of the rocker and you should then have acces to all of the hidden spot welds. It might be a good idea to get the body assembly manual that shows how all the sheetmetal goes together.
 
Wow Abe, I've never seen a rocker rotted out like that without everything else being toast too. Its amazing how much difference there can be in where a car will rust out.
 
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